A taxpayer-funded commission that the legislature is looking to for advice on energy policy would be exempt from Kentucky’s Open Records Act under a bill that a Senate committee approved Wednesday. Senate Bill 100, sponsored by Sen Robby Mills, R-Henderson, would shield records and correspondenc e of the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission, or EPIC, which the Republican-controlled legislature created in 2024 to review plans to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.  The bill also removes Rodney Andrews, the director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, from EPIC’s powerful executive committee and replaces him with the commission’s vice-chair, currently Jeffrey Brock, a business manager and engineer for a subsidiary of Alliance Resource Partners. Alliance’s CEO is Republican megadonor and coal magnate Joe Craft.  The bill further reshapes EPIC’s executive committee by removing appointments made by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and giving them to Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman. It also significantly expands the powers of the commission’s executive director.  EPIC’s creation two years ago faced pushback from investor-owned utilities and environmental groups who argued it put up bureaucratic barriers to replacing outdated coal-fired power plants. The law creating EPIC declared that “the health, happiness, safety, economic opportunity, and general welfare” of Kentuckians “will be promoted and protected” by operating fossil fuel-fired power plants. Republicans argued they wanted to prevent such power plants from retiring too soon. EPIC, housed in the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, is charged with reviewing requests made by utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants before the requests are filed with the Kentucky Public Service Commission, Kentucky’s longstanding utility regulator. Mills told members of the Kentucky Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee his bill would provide EPIC with more independence, the goal being for the commission to be a “go-to source for independent, data driven analysis on Kentucky’s energy future.”  The committee’s 9-0 vote to advance SB 100 sets it up for a vote by the full GOP-controlled Kentucky Senate.  “Not just reviewing what the utilities file, but proactively telling the legislature and the public where we stand and where we are heading,” Mills said about EPIC to lawmakers. “There’s not an independent voice that we need to advise us on energy. We talk to utilities. We talk to regulators. We never really get the right story.”  Open records controversy Mills’ bill would create a broad exemption in the state’s open records law for EPIC, allowing for “information, records, data, files, documents, or correspondence” created by the commission “in the course of carrying out any of their responsibilities” to be exempt from disclosure.  Mills said the legislature has been working with “partial information” on energy policy and needed to ensure that proprietary information utilities were sharing with EPIC could be shielded. He said the “slight shield, limited shield” of the state open records law would mean “we’re not going to get the exact information that we need.”  Kentucky law already exempts proprietary business information from disclosure under the Open Records Act. But environmental groups and the co-director of an open government advocacy group warned the broad exemption is unjustified and could allow the state commission to operate in secrecy. They said the current exemptions in the state’s open records law are adequate at protecting trade secrets and proprietary information.  “This bill ends up treating EPIC more like a private entity, rather than a public commission, even though it relies on public funding and performs public functions,” said Audrey Ernstberger, a lobbyist for the environmental legal group Kentucky Resources Council.  She said the open records law exemption could shield a broad array of records produced by EPIC including its procurements, contracts with outside consultants and data used by EPIC to create its reports and recommendations on energy policy.  “The ratepayers and the public have a right to discover the bases for the claims and assertions and the right to review these reports and studies and the data that underlie them,” Ernstberger said.  Amye Bensenhaver, a former Kentucky assistant attorney general and a co-director of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition, told the Lantern with the current exemptions in the state’s open records law, courts have “given deference” to state agencies and the entities they do business with.  “If someone has something to share with the state, and they can prove that it is truly confidential and proprietary and that it would create an unfair commercial advantage for a competitor, under existing law, they could deny access,” Bensenhaver told the Lantern. “I don’t know in this context how they could establish that every bit of business they do needs to be shielded from public disclosure.”  Reshaping EPIC’s power structure Mills also addressed proposals in SB 100 that would remove Beshear’s appointments from EPIC’s powerful executive committee and give them to Coleman, saying it ensures “there is less politics in the room when we are discussing and making decisions on Kentucky’s energy future.”  Scottie Ellis, a spokesperson for Beshear, in a statement said Kentuckians should be “very concerned” by the legislation, calling it “the latest politically motivated and unconstitutional attempt to unlawfully strip appointments and authority away from a Democratic governor and send them to a Republican officeholder.”  She said the bill also limits transparency and oversight of EPIC by exempting it from the open records law, arguing the bill is “is a blatant attempt by Republicans to have full control and work behind the scenes, while keeping our people in the dark – something that the attorney general himself should see as unlawful and stand against.”  The GOP-controlled Kentucky Senate confirmed Beshear’s two appointments to EPIC’s executive committee, Eston Glover and Edward Holmes. It’s unclear what happens to their standing on EPIC’s executive committee if SB 100 becomes law. The bill also substantially expands the power of EPIC’s executive director and establishes a fund where state appropriations could be placed to fund EPIC. EPIC named Eric King, a former University of Kentucky executive with ties to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and electric distribution cooperatives, as its executive director last year.  SB 100 would empower EPIC’s executive director to have the sole authority to hire staff, contractors, make procurement decisions and request records from any state agency with a minimum 30-day for any state agency to comply with a request. Under the bill, EPIC’s executive director would also have the ability to intervene as a party in utility cases before the Kentucky Public Service Commission, either jointly or separately from EPIC’s executive committee.  King in an interview with the Lantern said he advised Mills about the proprietary nature of some of the data utilities could share but that it would “help us as a state for our policy setting” on various topics including the impacts of data centers and electricity affordability and reliability.  “Our focus is going to be on the policy going forward, but recognizing EPIC is in our infancy,” King said. “It’s convening all of the energy expertise and minds in one room to deliberate over these questions about whether or not we have adequate energy.”  He said he has not read the latest version of SB 100 and deferred to Mills on the intent and interpretation of various provisions in the bill. When asked about the open records exemption in SB 100, he said his understanding is that “you need to be very explicit about what you’re exempting and why you’re exempting it.”  “If there’s a need for me to clarify that as it relates to the ‘why,’ I think that’s easily found in our work plan and the data we’re trying to procure and why we are procuring it for the state,” King said. “As far as our processes and our conduct within EPIC, I think we are exclusively transparent in terms of the information we’re providing the state to make better energy decisions, not just folks in Frankfort but across the entire state.”  EPIC had approved a plan in January to guide its actions on analyzing Kentucky’s electrical system, a 7-page document describing the plan as a result of substantive discussion “representing utilities, coal producers, natural gas suppliers, regulators, and other stakeholders.”  The document emphasizes the need to study the state’s electricity demand, supply and transmission infrastructure, stating that EPIC would provide “factual analysis that informs policy decisions without prejudging which generation sources or strategies Kentucky should pursue.”  The post New KY energy planner would be exempt from open records law under advancing bill appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less