Colorado Public Utilities Commissioner Wendy Moser voted to deny Black Hills Energy a rehearing of its 2016 rate case Thursday as the PUC unanimously decided to let the electric utility take its complaints to district court instead.

Moser, a former Black Hills senior lawyer, said the disputed 2016 rate decision -- where the PUC significantly cut the utility's request for an additional $8.5 million -- was likely headed to court anyway.

"We had a full commission make a decision and I think it's more efficient to just deny (the rehearing) and let it go to court," Moser recommended.

Chairman Jeff Ackermann endorsed that decision as did Commissioner Frances Koncilja, who took part in last year's PUC decision to cut the revenue request.

It appeared Koncilja was ready to make a more detailed argument Thursday against the Black Hills request, but Moser quickly showed she thought any rehearing of evidence or testimony was a waste of the PUC's time if the dispute was likely to be headed for a court decision.

"After that, a judge will tell us what the commission should do," she said.

Still, Moser taking the lead in turning away the utility's request caused Koncilja to pause during Thursday's vote because Black Hills already has filed suit in Denver court to get Koncilja disqualified from any further participation.

That suit will go ahead now that the Black Hills rate rehearing also has been denied.

Black Hills claims that Koncilja showed deep-rooted hostility to the company in a list of comments and criticisms she made during the rate hearing last October and in the commission's Nov. 30 decision meeting.

"I'm trying to decide whether I should vote on this," Koncilja acknowledged to Moser and Ackermann, but then added: "But I agree with the two of you."

What Black Hills wants is a reconsideration of 10 decisions the PUC made last November when its members were Koncilja, former Chairman Joshua Epel and Commissioner Glenn Vaad.

Specificially, those three sharply cut the rate of return the utility would be allowed on its purchase of a $61 million "peak power" turbine; blocked Black Hills from including pension costs and other compensation payments from being handed to ratepayers; and even set limits on the how much ratepayers would have to pay for the cost of the PUC proceedings.

The guts of Black Hills' argument was that Koncilja, Epel and Vaad applied rules and methods to the Black Hills request that were unfair and unprecedented.

The utility was seeking an extra $8.5 million a year for that list of requests and instead, the former commission cut that to $1.2 million -- which Black Hills argues is too low and even violates PUC rules.

proper@chieftain.com