The Maine Public Utilities Commission on Friday ordered Central Maine Power to provide a redacted version of a confidential file that the utility had tried to block.
The file is part of CMP’s responses to the PUC’s questions in its probe on high electric bills and thousands of customer complaints.
The Maine Public Advocate on May 9 filed a letter with the PUC asking that CMP provide a version of the file, which contains internal correspondence, that blacks out sensitive customer names and other information.
[CMP asks regulator not to release confidential docs in billing probe]
CMP on May 17 asked the PUC to not require it to provide the redacted confidential information because the volume of information was too burdensome to handle.
The PUC today denied CMP’s request and ordered it to provide a redacted version of the file in question by May 30, 2018.
CMP attorney Richard Hevey said in his May 17 filing that CMP has filed more than 10,000 pages of documents containing confidential customer information to date. He estimated it would take CMP at least 375 hours to comply with the request.
Maine Public Advocate Barry Hobbins told the Bangor Daily News on Thursday that he wasn’t asking for all of that information, but a specific set of documents containing some internal correspondences, and that shouldn’t be a burden to redact.
[Documents show CMP knew of billing problems early on, feared investigation]
In their ruling today, PUC examiners Charles Cohen and Mitchell Tannenbaum agreed.
They wrote, “The examiners have reviewed the confidential materials … and find that redacting such materials could not be unduly burdensome [to CMP].”
Follow the BDN Business page on Twitter @BDNbiz.
Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.