20260821Petition for Reconsideration.pdf

RECEIVED
August 21, 2026
IDAHO PUBLIC
SUSAN P. WEEKS, ISB NO. 4255 UTILITIES COMMISSION
JAMES, VERNON& WEEKS, P.A.
1626 Lincoln Way
Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
[e-mail]
Attorneys for Northern Lights, Inc.
BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
IN THE MATTER OF NORTHERN CASE NO. C 10-E-26-01
LIGHTS, INC.'S APPLICATION
FOR APPROVAL OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS INC.'S
COMPANY'S 2026 IDAHO PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION
WILDFIRE MITIGATION PLAN
COMES NOW Northern Lights, Inc. ("NLI"),by and through its undersigned counsel, and
pursuant to I.C. § 61-626 and IDAPA 31.01.01.331 ("Rule 331") of the Commission's Rules of
Procedure, respectfully submits this Petition for Reconsideration as it relates to Order No. 37120.
NLI requests reconsideration by written briefs and comments. The nature and quantity of evidence
and argument NLI will offer should reconsideration be granted consists principally of legal
argument based upon the existing record in this docket and the Commission's own prior orders
and the underlying comments filed in related dockets, including Order No. 36774, Order No.
36849, Order No. 36882, Order No. 37064 and the record therein, Order No. 37081 and the record
therein, Order No. 37102 and the record therein, and Order No. 37112 and the record therein.
I. LEGAL STANDARD
The statutory right to petition for reconsideration serves an essential purpose: to provide
parties a process by which to notify the Commission of potential errors and to allow the agency an
opportunity to correct them prior to judicial review. Idaho Underground Water Users Ass'n v
Idaho Power Co., 89 Idaho 147, 154, 404 P.2d 859, 862 (1965); Washington Water Power Co. V.
Idaho Pub. Utils. Comm'n, 101 Idaho 567, 571, 617 P.2d 1242, 1246 (1980). Any corporation,
NORTHERN LIGHT INC.'S PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION: 1

public utility, or person interested therein may petition for reconsideration as to any matter
contained in an order of the Commission. I.C. § 61-626(1). A petition for reconsideration must
identify why the order or any issue decided in it is unreasonable, unlawful, erroneous, or not in
conformity with the law, and the nature and quantity of evidence or argument the petitioner will
offer if reconsideration is granted. IDAPA 31.01.01.331.01. A petitioner must also identify the
method by which it requests reconsideration. IDAPA 31.01.01.331.03.
"The Idaho Public Utilities Commission has no authority other than that granted to it by
the legislature."Idaho State Homebuilders a Washington Water Power, 107 Idaho 415, 418, 690
P.2d 350, 353 (1984). The Commission exercises limited jurisdiction, and nothing is presumed in
favor of that jurisdiction. United States v Utah Power & Light Co., 98 Idaho 665, 667, 570 P.2d
1353, 1355 (1977). Questions concerning the scope of the Commission's statutory authority, and
the proper construction of the Wildfire Standard of Care Act,I.C. § 61-1801 et seq. (the"WSCA"),
are questions of law. So long as the Commission's factual findings are supported by substantial
and competent evidence, those findings will be affirmed absent an abuse of discretion. Grindstone
Butte Mut. Canal Co. a Idaho Pub. Utils. Comm'n, 102 Idaho 175, 178, 627 P.2d 804, 807(1981);
Empire Lumber Co. a Washington Water Power Co., 114 Idaho 191, 193, 755 P.2d 1229, 1231
(1988); A.W. Brown Co., Inc. a Idaho Power Co., 121 Idaho 812, 815-16, 828 P.2d 841, 844-45
(1992). Substantial evidence review,however,presupposes a decision reflecting the Commission's
own reasoned judgment. An order that merely recites another party's conclusion, without
independent analysis reconciling that conclusion against contrary evidence in the record, does not
reflect the reasoned agency decision-making that substantial evidence review is designed to test.
NLI's grounds for reconsideration are organized below with these distinctions in mind: several rest
on questions of statutory construction and the limits of the Commission's authority, which are
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reviewed without deference to the Commission's characterization of its own power; one rests on
the adequacy of the Commission's decision-making process, independent of whether the
underlying evidence was in conflict; and one addresses whether the evidentiary record, properly
weighed, supports the Order's conclusion.
The Idaho Legislature enacted the WSCA to provide for the safe, efficient and reliable
generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power at affordable rates and in such ways
that protect the public interest, health, safety and welfare. I.C. § 61-1802. In enacting the WSCA,
the Legislature was explicit that mitigation efforts must occur"within appropriate cost parameters
so that electric power is kept affordable to the public," and that the statute is "designed to direct
the prudent use of resources by electric utilities to mitigate and respond to wildfire risk within the
costs that can be justified as just and reasonable in order to keep rates affordable to utility
customers." Id. This cost reasonableness mandate is not incidental to the WSCA; it is written
directly into the statute's declaration of legislative intent.
A municipal or cooperative electric corporation that is not a public utility, such as NLI,
may elect to file a wildfire mitigation plan with the Commission for its review and approval.
I.C. § 61-1803(2)(b). When reviewing a wildfire mitigation plan, the Commission must ensure it
satisfies the minimum requirements of I.C. § 61-1803 and must consider the factors set forth in
I.C. § 61-1804(l). The Commission's task is to ensure that a proposed wildfire mitigation plan
meets these statutory requirements, no more and no less, because the Commission possesses only
the authority the Legislature has conferred upon it. Utah Power&Light Co., 98 Idaho at 667, 570
P.2d at 1355.
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II. BACKGROUND
On February 2, 2026,NLI filed its 2026-2028 Wildfire Mitigation Plan(the"2026 WMP")
with the Commission, followed by an updated Application on February 19, 2026, requesting
approval in accordance with the WSCA. Commission Staff ("Staff') reviewed the 2026 WMP,
including extensive supplemental information NLI provided through discovery, and recommended
that the Commission approve the 2026 WMP, subject only to directives that certain supplemental
detail be included in future WMP filings. Staff Comments at 2, 23-24. The Idaho Department of
Lands ("IDL") separately filed comments recommending that the 2026 WMP be rejected. On July
31, 2026, the Commission issued Order No. 37120, denying approval of the 2026 WMP in its
entirety, without prejudice. This Petition is timely filed within twenty-one days of the Order's
service date.
III. SUMMARY OF NLI'S ARGUMENTS FOR RECONSIDERATION
NLI's central and most fundamental ground for reconsideration is that IDL, acting under a
limited statutory grant to consult with the Commission regarding vegetation management,
reduction of wildfire fuels, and other duties of the state forester under Title 38, Idaho Code,has in
this and related, contemporaneous dockets advanced a technical risk modeling framework of its
own devising, requiring a specific two-factor structure and specific supplemental data layers,
including a state-maintained proprietary wildland urban interface dataset, and has asked the
Commission to treat that framework as the measure of compliance with the WSCA. IDL's own
stated rationale for imposing this framework is parity with IDL's separate administrative practice
governing county-level Community Wildfire Preparedness Plans under Title 38, a program not
shown to contain any requirement comparable to the WSCA's mandate that mitigation costs be
reasonably balanced against risk reduction. That framework does not fall within the scope of the
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presumption of reasonableness I.C. § 61-1804(3) affords State Forester recommendations, is not
otherwise required by the WSCA, and the Commission's own order in a related, contemporaneous
docket confirms that the Commission has never resolved whether the framework carries any legal
authority under the statute at all. The Commission's Order in this case adopted IDL's
characterization of NLI's plan as invalid without addressing any of these problems, and without
independently reconciling that characterization against Staff's own contrary technical findings.
This central defect, more fully developed in Sections B, C and D below, independently requires
reconsideration and infects the remainder of the Commission's analysis.
NLI raises six issues in total. Each is independently sufficient to warrant reconsideration,
and NLI does not intend that any single issue be read as subsuming, limiting, or standing in place
of any other. NLI requests that the Commission address each issue separately in any order issued
on reconsideration.
First, IDL's own recommendation that NLI's plan be rejected does not appear to reflect an
individualized technical assessment of NLI's own risk model, and the Commission's inconsistent
application of IDL's risk modeling concerns across contemporaneous, similarly situated dockets
warrants reconsideration.
Second, the Commission exceeded the authority granted to it under I.C. § 61-1804(3) by
treating certain of IDL's recommendations, specifically those concerning risk modeling
methodology, system component data, and soils data, as though they carried the statutory
presumption of reasonableness, when those recommendations do not relate to vegetation
management, reduction of wildfire fuels, or other duties of the state forester under Title 38, Idaho
Code, and therefore fall outside the scope of the presumption altogether.
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Third, and independent of the second issue, IDL's recommended modeling framework is
not a requirement of the WSCA at all. The Commission's own order in a related docket confirms
that the Commission has never determined whether that framework even falls within the narrow
category of recommendations to which I.C. § 61-1804(3)'s presumption applies. Rather than
resolve that threshold question, the Commission has substituted an undefined, non-statutory
standard of deference found nowhere in the statute.
Fourth,and independent of the second and third issues,the Commission exceeded the limits
of its own statutory authority by imposing an approval precondition found nowhere in the WSCA
or the Guidelines, and failed to exercise the independent judgment the WSCA requires of the
Commission itself, instead adopting IDL's characterization of NLI's risk model without
reconciling that characterization against Staff's own contrary technical findings or documenting
its reasoning as I.C. § 61-1804(3)requires.
Fifth, the Order is not supported by substantial evidence,because it rejects the 2026 WMP
notwithstanding Staff's own repeated, technically grounded findings that the applicable statutory
and Guidelines requirements were satisfied, and because the sole contrary evidence relied upon by
the Commission, IDL's characterization, does not constitute the kind of individualized,
case-specific evidence substantial evidence review contemplates.
Sixth, and in the alternative to the relief sought under the first five issues, even if the
Commission declines to reverse the denial outright, the appropriate remedy, consistent with the
Commission's own recent treatment of a similarly situated cooperative's wildfire mitigation plan,
is conditional approval with a defined compliance filing period, not outright denial without
prejudice.
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IV. LEGAL ARGUMENT
A. IDL's Recommendation That NLI's Plan Be Rejected Does Not Reflect an
Individualized Assessment of NLI's Risk Model,and the Commission Has Applied
IDL's Risk Modeling Concerns Inconsistently Across Contemporaneous,
Similarly Situated Dockets
In the months surrounding the Order at issue here, the Commission considered wildfire
mitigation plans filed by three other electric cooperatives: Kootenai Electric Cooperative, Inc.
("KEC"), in Case No. C07-E-25-01, decided by Order No. 37081 on June 29, 2026; Clearwater
Power Company ("Clearwater Power"), in Case No. COI-E-26-01, decided by Order No. 37102
on July 16, 2026; and Raft River Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc. ("Raft River"), in Case No.
CI I-E-26-01, decided by Order No. 37112 on July 29, 2026. Each of these dockets, together with
NLI's own docket decided by Order No. 37120 on July 31, 2026, involved Commission Staff,
review under the same WSCA provisions and the same Guidelines adopted in Order No. 36774,
as well as comments from IDL raising overlapping concerns regarding wildfire risk modeling. The
outcomes were not uniform. KEC's plan was approved on the condition of a fourteen-day
compliance filing. Clearwater Power's and Raft River's plans were denied.NLI's plan was denied.
A close review of the underlying comments in each of these dockets reveals that the basis for these
differing outcomes was not consistently or transparently articulated,and in NLI's case in particular,
raises a serious question about whether IDL's recommendation reflected any individualized review
of NLI's own risk model at all.
1. IDL's Recommendation to Reject NLI's Plan Appears to Have Been Substantially
Drawn From IDL's Comments in a Different, Contemporaneous Docket
Involving a Different Utility and a Different Modeling Vendor
IDL filed its comments recommending rejection of NLI's 2026 WMP on June 10, 2026.
IDL Comments at 2. One day earlier,on June 9,2026,IDL filed amended comments in Raft River's
docket, recommending rejection of Raft River's 2026-2028 Wildfire Mitigation Plan. IDL's
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Amended Comments to Raft River at 1-2. The operative language in both filings is substantially
identical. IDL's Raft River amended comments state: "When conducting risk modeling, two key
elements are necessary for a model to accurately represent risk: probability of occurrence and
consequence to values. The modeling provided by Raft River does not include the latter as it lacks
clearly identifiable wildland urban interface (WUI) or other comparable data in the modeling as a
data input or as a mask.As a result of this exclusion,the consequence of utility ignited fires cannot
be accurately reflected and brings into question the validity of the modeling. In light of this
omission, IDL recommends to PUC staff that the plan be rejected by the Commission."' Id. IDL's
NLI comments state, in substantially the same words: "When conducting risk modeling, two key
elements are necessary for a model to accurately represent risk-probability of occurrence and
consequence to values. The modeling provided by Northern Lights does not include the latter as it
lacks clearly identifiable wildland urban interface(WUI)or other comparable data in the modeling
as a data input or as a mask.As a result of this exclusion, the consequence of utility ignited fires
cannot be accurately reflected and brings into question the validity of the modeling. In light of this
omission, IDL recommends to PUC staff that the plan be rejected by the Commission." IDL NLI
Comments at 2.
The correspondence between these two filings is confirmed by a footnote appearing in
NLI's IDL comments.That footnote reads,in its entirety: "IDL maintains a current state-level WUI
layer and invites Raft River to contact Tyre Holfeltz for access to the data and instruction on how
to integrate that data into their modeling." IDL NLI Comments at 2 n.1. This footnote refers to
Raft River, not NLI, notwithstanding that it appears in comments filed in NLI's docket regarding
1 For ease of reference,NLI refers to this articulation as the "two-factor probability-and-
consequence framework"throughout this Petition.
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NLI's plan.The identical footnote,referring to Raft River by name,also appears in IDL's amended
Raft River comments filed the preceding day. IDL's Amended Comments to Raft River at 2 n.2.
NLI raises this observation not to impugn the diligence or good faith of IDL's counsel or
technical staff, but because it bears on two distinct and independent legal questions. First, it bears
on whether the validity determination and rejection recommendation adopted by the Commission
in this case reflect an individualized assessment of NLI's own risk modeling, developed by a
named third-party vendor, Athena Intelligence, drawing upon data sources including the United
States Department of Agriculture Forest Service's Wildfire Risk to Communities 2024 dataset and
Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools 2023 dataset. Staff Comments at 9.The
record instead suggests that the specific validity concern and rejection recommendation applied to
NLI's plan originated in a different docket and addressed a different utility's plan, built on an
entirely different modeling platform developed by a different vendor, SWCA Environmental
Consultants. Order No. 37112 at 6-7.A recommendation carried over in this manner cannot be said
to reflect the individualized consideration I.C. § 61-1803(3) contemplates, which requires that a
wildfire mitigation plan, and by extension its review,be "reflective of and commensurate with the
size and complexity of the electric corporation's operations and of the nature of the fire risk."
Second,and independently,it bears on whether the statutory presumption of reasonableness
in I.C. § 61-1804(3) can properly attach to a recommendation of this character. The presumption
applies to "the recommendations of the state forester," a formulation that presupposes a
recommendation reflecting the State Forester's considered judgment regarding the specific plan
under review.A recommendation substantially recycled from a different docket's technical record,
concerning a different vendor's different modeling platform, is not, in substance, a
recommendation regarding NLI's plan at all. The Commission should not extend a presumption
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designed to credit the State Forester's expert judgment to a document that does not appear to reflect
that judgment having been separately exercised.
2. IDL's Own Prior Comments in Raft River's Docket Demonstrate That the Validity
and Rejection Characterization Was Not IDL's Initial or Consistently Held
Technical Assessment
IDL's original comments in Raft River's docket, filed June 5, 2026, four days before IDL's
amended comments, reflect a materially different and more measured assessment. IDL's original
Raft River comments state only that Raft River's modeling "lacks critical details on data inputs
and methodology to adequately determine the validity of the outputs presented in the plan," and
requests "additional narrative descriptive details" for evaluation purposes. IDL's Original
Comments to Raft River at 1. This is a request for information sufficient to permit an evaluation
of validity, not a finding that validity is absent or a recommendation of rejection. Only in IDL's
amended comments, filed after the public comment deadline had passed, did IDL's position
escalate to a stated validity concern and a recommendation of rejection.IDL's Amended Comments
to Raft River at 1-2; Order No. 37112 at 2 (acknowledging that "IDL's original and amended
comments were filed after the public comment deadline"). Nothing in the record explains what
changed between IDL's original and amended assessments of the same underlying model.
IDL's comments regarding KEC's plan, filed in the same general timeframe and raising
substantially the same categories of missing data (system component type, condition, and age, a
vegetative height layer, and a soils layer), use nearly identical language to the Raft River and NLI
dockets, but recommend only that these items be included in future wildfire risk management
plans. IDL Comments to KEC at 1-3. IDL did not recommend that KEC's plan be rejected, and its
comments closed by commending KEC for its community engagement efforts. Id. at 3.
The pattern across these three contemporaneous dockets is that IDL's assessment of
substantially the same category of alleged missing risk modeling data produced three different
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characterizations: encouragement for future improvement in KEC's case; an initial request for
clarifying information followed by an escalated validity concern and rejection recommendation in
Raft River's case; and an immediate validity concern and rejection recommendation, without any
preceding request for clarification, in NLI's case. Neither IDL's comments nor the Commission's
Order in any of these three dockets articulates a technical or legal standard explaining why the
same category of missing data warrants three different characterizations of severity. This
inconsistency is compounded, in NLI's case, by the apparent reuse of language originally
developed for another utility's different modeling platform, as described above.
By contrast, in Clearwater Power's docket, both Staff and IDL independently and
specifically identified a materially different defect: that Clearwater Power's modeling relied on a
named vendor's use of specific, superseded data products from 2012 and 2016, which IDL and
Staff both stated produced a wildfire risk that was quantifiably and substantially understated
compared to current industry standard products. Staff Comments to Clearwater at 9-10; Order No.
37102 at 9-10. That is a concrete, individualized, and specifically supported basis for finding a
model deficient.No comparable individualized showing appears anywhere in the record regarding
NLI's model.
3. The Commission Adopted IDL's Unreconciled and Apparently Non-
Individualized Characterization Without Addressing Any of These
Inconsistencies
The Order does not acknowledge the existence of the KEC, Clearwater Power, or Raft
River dockets, does not address the differing severity of IDL's recommendations across these
contemporaneous cases involving substantially overlapping technical concerns, and does not
address the apparent origin of the specific validity and rejection language applied to NLI's plan in
another docket concerning a different utility's different modeling vendor. Idaho Code section
61-1804(3)requires that, when the Commission declines to apply its ordinary course of treatment
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with respect to IDL's recommendations, it document its reasoning. The converse obligation is at
least as strong:where the Commission elevates one instance of an IDL recommendation to outright
rejection while treating substantially identical recommendations in contemporaneous dockets as
grounds only for future refinement, the Commission's order must explain the basis for that
differential treatment. That obligation is not satisfied where the Commission adopts, without
examination,a recommendation whose consistency,individualization,and technical grounding are
all called into serious question by the very record the Commission was required to review.
For these reasons, the Commission should reconsider and reverse the Order, or, at
minimum, require IDL to clarify, and independently examine, the basis for the validity
characterization and rejection recommendation applied to NLI's plan before allowing the denial to
stand.
B. The Commission Exceeded Its Statutory Authority Under I.C. § 61-1804(3) by
Treating IDL's Recommendations Regarding Risk Modeling Methodology and
Data Inputs as Entitled to the Statutory Presumption of Reasonableness
Idaho Code section 61-1804(3) provides that, with respect to elements of a wildfire
mitigation plan that relate to vegetation management, reduction of wildfire fuels, and other duties
of the state forester under Title 38, Idaho Code, it shall be presumed that the recommendations of
the state forester are reasonable and appropriate. The Commission is directed to incorporate
recommendations regarding these specific elements into its decision unless the Commission
determines they are not just, reasonable, and in the public interest, in which case the Commission
must document its reasoning. This presumption, and the corresponding obligation to incorporate
IDL's recommendations absent a documented contrary finding, is mandatory where it applies.NLI
does not dispute that principle.
NLI's argument is narrower and different in kind, and it is a pure question of statutory
construction: does the presumption apply to the recommendations at issue at all? The statutory
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presumption applies only to recommendations that relate to vegetation management, reduction of
wildfire fuels, or other duties of the state forester under Title 38. It does not, by its terms, extend
to every recommendation IDL makes in the course of commenting on a wildfire mitigation plan.
Several of the recommendations the Commission adopted as binding in the Order fall outside this
statutory description entirely.IDL's recommendation regarding system component type,condition,
and age concerns utility asset engineering data,not vegetation management or fuel reduction.IDL's
recommendation regarding soils layer data addresses geological and engineering risk factors, not
vegetation management or fuel reduction. IDL's recommendation regarding the general structure
and validity of NLI's third-parry vendor's risk modeling platform addresses modeling
methodology, not vegetation management or fuel reduction. IDL's recommendation regarding
NLI's process for compensating timber companies is a financial and compensation disclosure
matter. IDL's recommendation that NLI provide an economic valuation of its system and the cost
of inaction is a cost-benefit analysis matter squarely within the Commission's own domain under
I.C. § 61-1804(1)(b), an area Staff independently reviewed and found sufficient. Staff Comments
at 4-5.
Only IDL's recommendations regarding the vegetative height layer and wildland
fire-specific vegetation inspection certification plausibly relate to vegetation management within
the meaning of I.C. § 61-1804(3).As to the latter,the Commission itself correctly declined to adopt
IDL's recommendation, finding that it lacked a sufficient basis to impose rigid obligations on NLI
in excess of established industry standards without further elaboration from IDL. Order No. 37120
at 16. Having applied that appropriately exacting scrutiny to one of IDL's recommendations, the
Commission erred by failing to apply the same scrutiny to IDL's recommendations regarding
system components, soils data, and general modeling methodology and validity, none of which
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relate to vegetation management, fuel reduction,or Title 38 duties, and none of which are therefore
entitled to the statutory presumption in the first instance.
This distinction matters because the Commission's own prior orders in this docket family
confirm that IDL's role is meant to be bounded by these categories. In Order No. 36774, the
Commission held that it would apply the statutory presumption to state forester recommendations
"particularly those related to vegetation management, fuel reduction, and responsibilities under
Title 38," while expressly declining to establish a broader framework governing all of IDL's
recommendations,noting instead that"the relevance and persuasive force of IDL's comments and
recommendations may vary from case to case." Order No. 36774 at 20. That statement
contemplates that IDL's recommendations outside the enumerated statutory categories are to be
evaluated on their merits, not treated as presumptively controlling, and not treated as an automatic
basis for rejecting an otherwise compliant plan.
IDL's own comments in this docket confirm that its recommendation to reject NLI's plan
was not grounded in the WSCA at all, but in IDL's separate administrative practice governing
county-level Community Wildfire Preparedness Plans ("CWPP") under Title 38. IDL explained
that it has "long required" county-level cooperators to provide descriptive detail about modeling
inputs, and that declining to hold utilities to the same standard would create what IDL described
as a double standard. IDL Comments to NLI at 1.
This asserted justification is not merely administratively separate from the WSCA; it is
doctrinally incompatible with it. Nothing in the record establishes that Title 38 CWPP planning,
as IDL describes its own practice, is subject to any requirement analogous to the WSCA's central
cost-reasonableness mandate. By contrast, the WSCA requires that a WMP "reflect a reasonable
balancing of mitigation costs with the resulting reduction of wildfire risk," I.C. § 61-1803(3), and
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requires the Commission itself to weigh "the feasibility of the plan and the cost of its
implementation" before approving it. I.C. § 61-1804(1)(b). The WSCA confirms this cost-
conscious design was central to the statute's purpose, explaining that the WSCA is intended to
direct mitigation efforts "within the costs that can be justified as just and reasonable in order to
keep rates affordable to utility customers." I.C. § 61-1802. IDL's stated rationale for
recommending rejection of NLI's plan, that a double standard would otherwise result between
electric utilities and IDL's own county-level CWPP cooperators, never engages with this
cost-reasonableness requirement. A recommendation whose own stated justification imports a
standard from a different regulatory scheme, without regard to the cost-balancing mandate
embedded in the statute actually before the Commission, cannot be presumed reasonable under
I.C. § 61-1804(3),and the Commission's adoption of that recommendation without addressing this
mismatch compounds the error already described above.
An agency's internal practice in an unrelated regulatory context, developed under a
different statute with different objectives and without a comparable cost constraint, cannot
substitute for the standard the Legislature actually enacted in the WSCA, and cannot be
bootstrapped into a statutory presumption of reasonableness that,by its own terms, does not reach
that subject matter.
For these reasons, the Commission's wholesale adoption of IDL's recommendations
regarding risk modeling methodology, system component data, and soils data, without first
determining whether those recommendations fall within the scope of I.C. § 61-1804(3), and
without reconciling IDL's own stated rationale against the WSCA's cost-reasonableness mandate,
constitutes legal error requiring reconsideration.
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NLI raises this argument regarding the scope of I.C. § 61-1804(3)'s presumption separately
from, and in addition to, the arguments set forth in Sections C and D below: that IDL's
recommended modeling framework is not required by the WSCA at all, and that the Commission
independently exceeded its own statutory authority by: 1) imposing an approval precondition
found nowhere in the WSCA or the Guidelines and 2)by failing to exercise independent judgment
regarding the sufficiency of NLI's risk modeling. NLI intends to preserve each of these grounds
for further review, and requests that the Commission address each independently in any order
issued on reconsideration.
C. IDL's Recommended Modeling Framework Is Not a Requirement of the WSCA,
and the Commission's Own Order in a Related Docket Demonstrates That the
Commission Has Never Resolved Whether That Framework Carries Any Legal
Authority Under the Statute
The problem identified in Section B above is not limited to the question of whether IDL's
specific recommendations in this docket fall within the scope of I.C. § 61-1804(3)'s presumption.
A related but distinct problem exists: several of the specific technical requirements IDL has asked
the Commission to impose are not requirements of the WSCA at all, but are instead a modeling
framework of IDL's own devising, and the Commission has permitted that framework to acquire
the practical force of law without ever testing whether the Legislature authorized IDL to establish
it.
Idaho Code section 61-1803(3)(a) requires only that a wildfire mitigation plan identify
"geographical areas where an electric corporation has infrastructure or equipment that the electric
corporation considers may be subject to a heightened risk of wildfire at the time the wildfire
mitigation plan is finalized."Nothing in this provision,nor anywhere else in the WSCA, specifies
a required data layer, a required dataset, a required analytical framework, or a required set of
modeling inputs. The Legislature's sole substantive constraint on methodology is the general
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instruction that a wildfire mitigation plan be "developed using approaches and methods that are
designed to protect the public interest and are reflective of and commensurate with the size and
complexity of the electric corporation's operations and of the nature of the fire risk."
I.C. § 61-1803(3). The WSCA's structure, in other words, is category-based rather than
metrics-based: the statute identifies the subject areas a plan must address and leaves methodology
to the utility's judgment, subject only to that general proportionality constraint. The Legislature
did not, as some other jurisdictions have done, prescribe required datasets, mapping standards, or
a specific modeling architecture by statute. IDL's recommended framework, standardized data
layers and a specific two-factor probability-and-consequence architecture, is precisely the kind of
prescriptive requirement the WSCA's category-based structure does not impose.
That the WSCA's general proportionality standard governs, rather than any prescriptive
metric, does not leave the Commission without a workable standard by which to evaluate NLI's
plan. NLI's 2026 WMP was developed by a named third-party vendor,Athena Intelligence, using
recognized national datasets including the United States Department of Agriculture Forest
Service's Wildfire Risk to Communities 2024 dataset, Landscape Fire and Resource Management
Planning Tools 2023 dataset, National Interagency Fire Center Wildland Fire Interagency
Geospatial Services data, and University of Wisconsin SILVIS Lab data. Staff Comments at 9.NLI
is a small, member-owned rural electric cooperative, and its modeling approach and the resources
devoted to it are commensurate with that scale and complexity, precisely the standard
I.C. § 61-1803(3) sets. Staff, applying that same statutory standard, independently reached the
same conclusion, finding that NLI's approach was reasonable. Staff Comments at 8-9. IDL's
recommended framework displaces that statutory standard and substitutes a different, unenacted
one.
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This category-based structure is not an inadvertent gap in the statute. It reflects the
Commission's own considered interpretation of the WSCA's design.In Order No. 36882,resolving
a petition for clarification brought by,among others,KEC,Raft River, Clearwater Power, and NLI
itself, the Commission squarely rejected the premise that a single, prescriptive analytical
framework is required, or even appropriate, to satisfy the WSCA's requirement that a WMP
reasonably balance mitigation costs against risk reduction. The Commission explained that a
request for a standardized methodology "ostensibly assumes that a single, prescriptive analytical
framework is preferable, or even necessary,"and held that assumption to be"incorrect."Order No.
36882 at 2. The Commission further explained that "[i]mposing a single, rigid standard" is "both
unnecessary and undesirable" because the WSCA "expressly recognizes" the diversity among
electric corporations eligible to file WMPs, and affords "reasonable flexibility" in how each
satisfies the statute's substantive requirements. Id. at 2-3 (citing I.C. § 61-1803(3)). The same
reasoning applies with equal force to wildfire risk modeling methodology. Nothing in the WSCA
singles out risk assessment for the rigid,standardized treatment IDL advanced and the Commission
adopted.
IDL's recommendations do not stop at pointing out gaps consistent with that general
reasonableness standard. IDL has instead recommended, across this docket and the
contemporaneous dockets described in Section A above, the same recurring and specific technical
framework: identifiable wildland urban interface data, a "two-factor" probability-and-
consequence modeling structure, infrastructure type, condition, and age data, a vegetative height
layer, and soils data. IDL has, in substance, exported a technical standard developed for a different
regulatory program under Title 38 into this proceeding,as described more fully in Section B above,
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and has asked the Commission to treat that imported standard as though it were a requirement the
Legislature wrote into the WSCA. It is not.
Nor is IDL's recommended wildland urban interface layer itself a resource independently
available to electric corporations attempting to comply with IDL's recommendation. IDL's own
comments distinguish between data it describes as "publicly obtained," specifically the vegetative
height and soils layers it recommends, IDL Comments to NLI at 2 n.3, and the wildland urban
interface dataset IDL recommends, access to which requires that a utility "contact Tyre Holfeltz
for access to the data and instruction on how to integrate that data into their modeling." Id. at 2
n.1. IDL's comments in Clearwater Power's docket similarly identify a publicly available wildland
urban interface dataset,the SILVIS Lab dataset, and criticize its use as inadequate when compared
to IDL's own preferred data. See IDL Comments to Clearwater at 1-2; Staff Comments to
Clearwater at 9-10. The record thus reflects that IDL is not recommending that risk modeling
account for wildland urban interface exposure using any of the publicly available means of doing
so but is directing electric corporations toward a specific dataset that IDL itself maintains and
controls access to, a recommendation with no textual basis in the WSCA and one that positions
IDL as a continuing gatekeeper over a utility's ability to comply with IDL's own recommendation.
This distinction matters because the Commission's own recent order
in Case No. AVU-E-25-15 demonstrates that the Commission has not yet resolved, and arguably
has avoided resolving, whether IDL's preferred modeling framework carries any actual legal
authority under the WSCA. In that case, IDL made substantially the same recommendations it has
made here: that the utility's risk modeling account for infrastructure type, condition, and age; a
vegetative height layer; soils data; and damaging wind events. Order No. 37064 at 2. Notably, the
Commission in that case did not invoke the statutory presumption standard set forth in
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I.C. § 61-1804(3) to require adoption of that framework. Instead, the Commission used different,
non-statutory language, stating that it merely"expect[ed]"the utility to implement IDL's modeling
recommendations "in recognition of the statutory deference afforded the State Forester," "unless
it can articulate substantial justification for failing to do so." Order No. 37064 at 13. Neither
"statutory deference" nor a "substantial justification" standard appears anywhere in
I.C. § 61-1804(3), which speaks only in terms of a presumption of reasonableness that must be
incorporated "unless the commission determines they are not just, reasonable, and in the public
interest,"with documented reasoning required in either direction.
The Commission's departure from the statutory standard in that case is telling. It suggests
that the Commission itself recognized, at least implicitly, that IDL's infrastructure, soils, and
modeling-methodology recommendations do not comfortably fall within the category of
recommendations "relat[ing] to vegetation management, reduction of wildfire fuels, and other
duties of the state forester under title 38, Idaho Code," to which the statutory presumption is
expressly limited. I.C. § 61-1804(3). Rather than resolve that scope question, the Commission
substituted an undefined standard of its own, one that gave IDL's framework practical effect
without requiring the Commission to explain, under the actual statutory text, why that framework
was entitled to any deference at all.
The Order in this case repeats the same pattern in a more pronounced form. Here, the
Commission did invoke the formal language of I.C. § 61-1804(3), finding that "IDL's
recommendations in this case are reasonable" and must therefore be incorporated, without
separately analyzing whether IDL's infrastructure-data, soils-data, and general modeling-
methodology recommendations are recommendations that "relate to vegetation management,
reduction of wildfire fuels, and other duties of the state forester under title 38, Idaho Code" in the
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first instance. The Commission's own inconsistent treatment of this same recurring IDL
framework, invoking no clear statutory standard in one docket and the formal statutory
presumption in another,without addressing the threshold scope question in either,is itself evidence
that the Commission has allowed IDL's preferred modeling framework to acquire the operative
force of a legal requirement without the statutory analysis I.C. § 61-1804(3) demands.
NLI does not ask the Commission to determine that IDL's recommended modeling inputs
are poor wildfire science, nor does NLI dispute that IDL may have sound technical reasons for
preferring the framework it has described. NLI's position is narrower: the WSCA does not require
this framework. Idaho Code section 61-1804(3) does not extend a presumption of reasonableness
to recommendations of this kind, and the Commission's willingness to give IDL's preferred
framework practical,quasi-mandatory effect,whether through the formal statutory presumption or
through an ad hoc substitute standard of the Commission's own creation, exceeds what the
Legislature authorized. If the Commission has determined, as a matter of policy, that wildfire risk
modeling should incorporate WUI, infrastructure, and soils data as a categorical matter for every
electric corporation's WMP, the proper mechanism for adopting that requirement is the same
general, prospective Guidelines amendment process the Commission used to adopt Order No.
36774 in the first instance, with notice and an opportunity for all affected utilities to be heard, not
the ad hoc adoption of one commenting agency's preferred technical framework, inconsistently
applied across dockets, under the borrowed and misapplied authority of a statutory presumption
that does not, by its own terms, reach that subject matter. For these reasons, the Commission's
reliance on IDL's modeling framework as a basis for denying approval of the 2026 WMP
constitutes legal error independent of, and in addition to, the error described in Section B above,
and NLI preserves this ground separately for any further review.
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D.The Commission Exceeded the Limits of Its Own Statutory Authority by Imposing
an Approval Precondition Found Nowhere in the WSCA or the Guidelines, by
Abdicating Its Independent Judgment to IDL's Characterization of the Plan, and
by Failing to Document Its Reasoning as Required by I.C. § 61-1804(3)
Separate and apart from the question of whether IDL's specific recommendations fall
within the scope of the presumption described in I.C. § 61-1804(3), or whether IDL's modeling
framework is required by the WSCA at all, the Order reflects a more fundamental problem. The
Commission itself lacks authority to treat the presence of any particular risk modeling data set,
such as wildland urban interface data, infrastructure condition and age data, or soils data, as a
mandatory precondition to approval of a wildfire mitigation plan, because no such precondition
appears anywhere in the WSCA or in the Guidelines the Commission adopted in Order No. 36774.
1. The Commission Lacks Authority to Impose an Approval Criterion Not Found in
the WSCA or the Guidelines
The Commission is a creature of statute, possessing only the authority the Legislature has
conferred upon it. It exercises limited jurisdiction, and nothing is presumed in its favor. Utah
Power & Light Co., 98 Idaho at 667, 570 P.2d at 1355. This Commission has recognized and
applied that very principle in this same docket family, holding in Order No. 36849 that "the
Commission has no authority other than that given to it by the legislature,"and that"it exercises a
limited jurisdiction, and nothing is presumed in favor of its jurisdiction." Order No. 36849 at 5
(quoting Utah Power&Light Co., 98 Idaho at 667, 570 P.2d at 1355).
Idaho Code section 61-1803(3) sets forth, in express and specific terms, what a wildfire
mitigation plan must contain at a minimum: identification of geographic areas of heightened risk,
preventative actions and programs, community outreach, government coordination, prudent line
design, weather monitoring, and standards for inspection, de-energization, and vegetation
management. Nowhere does the statute require that the geographic risk assessment incorporate
any particular data layer as a precondition to approval, nor does it adopt IDL's asserted two-factor
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probability-and-consequence framework as the governing standard for what constitutes an
adequate model. Nor do the Guidelines the Commission adopted in Order No. 36774 impose any
such requirement. Order No. 36774 itself establishes that the Guidelines, not case-specific
recommendations introduced during an individual WMP's review, are meant to serve as the
operative standard, providing that "each electric corporation must comply with these guidelines
for its WMP to satisfy the requirements for approval going forward." Order No. 36774 at 21.
The Commission cannot supply, through adjudication in an individual case, a substantive
approval criterion that the Legislature did not enact and that the Commission's own Guidelines do
not contain. To do so is to exceed the limited jurisdiction the WSCA confers. If the Commission
believes wildfire risk modeling should, as a categorical matter, incorporate IDL's wildland urban
interface data, infrastructure data, or soils data as a condition of approval for every electric
corporation's plan, the appropriate mechanism for adopting that requirement is amendment of the
Guidelines through the same general, prospective process the Commission used in Order No.
36774, with notice and comment from all affected utilities, not imposition of a new, unwritten
requirement against a single cooperative in an individual adjudication, and certainly not adoption
of a technical framework asserted by a consulted agency whose own stated rationale for that
framework is untethered from the WSCA itself.
2. The Commission Failed to Exercise the Independent Judgment the WSCA
Requires, Instead Adopting IDL's Characterization of the Plan Without
Reconciling It Against Staffs Contrary Findings
This problem is compounded by the manner in which the Commission arrived at its
conclusion that NLI's risk model was insufficient. The WSCA charges the Commission, not IDL,
with determining whether a wildfire mitigation plan satisfies I.C. § 61-1804(1)'s criteria. This
Commission has itself recognized that its obligation under the WSCA is to exercise independent
judgment rather than defer to another parry's assessment. In Order No. 36849, addressing a
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different but related argument that the Commission should simply accept a governing board's own
attestation regarding the reasonableness of its WMP costs, the Commission held that the WSCA
"requires the Commission to exercise its own judgment on these issues, rather than defer to the
electric corporation's governing body," and that "uncritical, blind acceptance" of another parry's
characterization "does not satisfy this obligation."Order No. 36849 at 4-5.
That same principle applies with equal force here, and the point is not that the Commission
was wrong to find IDL's view persuasive over Staff's.Agencies are entitled to weigh conflicting
evidence and to credit one parry's assessment over another's. The point is narrower and more
fundamental: the Order contains no independent statement of the Commission's own reasoning
explaining why NLI's risk model, which Staff separately and independently reviewed and found
to reflect "a reasonable modeling approach," (Staff Comments at 8-9), should nonetheless be
treated as invalid. Instead, the Order recites IDL's characterization that the absence of IDL's
preferred specific data places the model's validity "in question," (IDL Comments at 2), without
independently testing that characterization against Staff's contrary technical assessment, without
testing whether IDL's asserted two-factor modeling framework has any grounding in the WSCA
or the Guidelines, and without accounting for the concerns described in Section A above regarding
the apparent origin and inconsistent application of that characterization.An order that recites IDL's
conclusion to which deference is not owed in place of the Commission's own reasoning does not
reflect the exercise of independent judgment the WSCA requires, regardless of whether the
underlying evidence, properly weighed, might have supported the same result.
3. The Commission Failed to Document Its Reasoning as Independently Required
by L C. §61-1804(3)
Idaho Code § 61-1804(3) imposes a distinct and independently enforceable procedural
obligation on the Commission. The statute provides that recommendations of the state forester
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falling within its scope "shall be incorporated in the decision of the commission unless the
commission determines they are not just, reasonable, and in the public interest, in which case the
commission shall document its reasoning in its order approving or rejecting the plan." This
documentation duty is not discretionary, and it is not satisfied by silence. It requires the
Commission, whenever it departs from the ordinary treatment of a state forester recommendation,
whether by declining to adopt one or by treating one as more severe or more controlling than its
terms warrant, to explain why.
The Order does not document any reasoning explaining why IDL's recommendation to
reject NLI's plan outright, as opposed to IDL's more measured recommendations regarding KEC's
substantially similar plan,was adopted. Nor does the Order explain why IDL's characterization of
the plan's validity should control over Staff's independent finding that the plan reflected a
reasonable modeling approach. Nor does the Order address whether IDL's asserted
probability-and-consequence framework, or IDL's stated Title 38 parity rationale, bear any
relationship to the WSCA's own text and cost-reasonableness purpose. This omission is significant
in its own right, separate from the substantive arguments above, because it reflects the
Commission's failure to satisfy an express procedural duty the Legislature wrote into the statute.
Whether the Order contains the required explanation is a threshold question answerable from the
face of the Order itself, without resolving any disputed technical question. It does not contain that
explanation.
For these reasons, the Order reflects the imposition of an approval criterion the
Commission had no authority to create outside the Guidelines amendment process, an abdication
of the Commission's own duty to exercise independent judgment, and a failure to satisfy the
express documentation duty imposed by I.C. § 61-1804(3). Each of these three defects is
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independently sufficient grounds for reconsideration, and NLI preserves each as a separate and
distinct ground for any further review.
E. The Order Is Not Supported by Substantial Evidence, Because It Rejects the 2026
WMP Notwithstanding Staff's Own Repeated Findings That the Applicable
Statutory and Guidelines Requirements Were Satisfied, and Because the Sole
Contrary Evidence Does Not Reflect the Individualized Assessment Substantial
Evidence Review Presupposes
Staff's Comments, reviewed section by section, do not characterize NLI's 2026 WMP as
failing to meet any mandatory statutory or Guidelines requirement. To the contrary, Staff's
Comments repeatedly conclude that the applicable requirements were satisfied, based on the plan
together with NLI's discovery responses, with Staff's recommendations directed at improving the
presentation of that same substance in future filings.
With respect to the geographic risk assessment, Staff found that NLI "has followed a
reasonable modeling approach to assess wildfire risk in its service territory and has met the
requirements of I.C. § 61-1803(3)(a) and the Guidelines." Staff Comments at 8-9. With respect to
the narrative explaining how mitigation activities reduce wildfire risk, Staff found that NLI's
discovery responses and discussions allowed Staff to conclude that "Staff believes the Company
satisfied the requirements of the WSCA."Id. at 10. With respect to project-level detail for system
hardening and line design, Staff determined that the combination of the plan and NLI's discovery
response allowed Staff to conclude that the requirements of I.C. §§ 61-1803(3)(b) and 61-
1803(3)(e)and the Guidelines"were met."Id. at 14-15.With respect to the weather station network
and situational awareness tool, Staff stated expressly that "even though Staff believes that the
information provided in the 2026 WMP satisfies I.C. § 61-1803(3)(f) and the Guidelines," Staff
nonetheless recommended additional detail in future filings. Id. at 16-17.
In each instance, Staff's own words describe a plan that meets the applicable legal standard,
coupled with a recommendation that supporting detail already supplied through discovery be
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consolidated into the WMP document itself in future filings, for ease of review and comparison
across WMP cycles. This is not the language of a plan containing missing, mandatory elements. It
is the language of a plan that satisfies the governing statute and Guidelines, accompanied by
suggestions for improved presentation going forward. Staff's own summary recommendation
section reflects this conclusion, recommending that the Commission approve the 2026 WMP and
separately direct NLI to include additional detail in future filings, should NLI elect to file again.
Id. at 23-24.
The Order does not identify any finding by Staff that a mandatory requirement of the
WSCA or the Guidelines went unmet. Instead, the Order adopts IDL's characterization that the
absence of certain risk modeling data renders the entire plan invalid, a characterization that Staff
itself did not share, and that Staff's own technical review does not support. NLI recognizes that
the Commission is entitled to weigh conflicting evidence, and that Staff's contrary view does not,
by itself,render the Order unsupported. But the record here presents more than a conflict between
two competing technical assessments of equal individualized weight.As demonstrated in Section
A above, the specific characterization the Commission adopted, that the absence of a
state-maintained WUI dataset renders NLI's modeling invalid, appears to have been substantially
drawn from a different docket's technical record concerning a different vendor's different
modeling platform, rather than from an assessment developed specifically in response to NLI's
plan.Evidence of that character is not the kind of individualized,case-specific evidence substantial
evidence review contemplates, and it cannot, standing alone, outweigh Staff's considered,
plan-specific technical findings. Where the Commission's ultimate finding is directly contrary to
the considered, technically grounded findings of its own Staff, and the sole contrary evidence is
itself of doubtful individualized character, and the Commission's order does not explain why it
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rejected Staff's analysis in favor of that evidence,the resulting order is not supported by substantial
evidence in the record as a whole. See Application of Intermountain Gas Co., 77 Idaho 188, 202,
289 P.2d 933, 942 (1955).
F. In the Alternative, the Appropriate Remedy Is Conditional Approval With a
Defined Compliance Filing Period, Consistent With the Commission's Treatment
of KEC's Plan in Order No. 37081
Should the Commission decline to reverse the denial outright,NLI respectfully moves, in
the alternative, for reconsideration of the remedy imposed. In Order No. 37081, faced with a
materially similar set of circumstances, the Commission approved KEC's plan on the condition
that KEC file a compliance filing incorporating the supplemental information KEC had already
provided to Staff through discovery, within fourteen days of the order. Order No. 37081 at 12-14.
That remedy allowed KEC's plan to take effect, preserved the liability presumption under I.C. §
61-1806(l) without interruption, and gave KEC a short, defined window to formalize in writing
what it had already demonstrated to Staff's satisfaction in substance.
NLI's circumstances warrant the same treatment, especially given the concerns described
in Section A above regarding the apparent non-individualized origin of IDL's rejection
recommendation as applied to NLI specifically. Staff's own comments confirm that the gaps
identified in NLI's plan were gaps of presentation rather than gaps of substance, cured in fact by
NLI's discovery responses and simply not yet incorporated into the WMP document itself. Staff
Comments at 4-17. To the extent the Commission believes IDL's recommendations regarding
system component, soils, and modeling methodology data warrant more than the forward-looking
treatment Staff proposed, the Commission's own recent order in KEC's case demonstrates that a
short compliance filing period is a workable, proportionate remedy for exactly this category of
concern. There is no principled basis to afford NLI a categorically harsher remedy, outright denial
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without prejudice, for substantially the same category of deficiency the Commission treated as
curable within fourteen days for KEC.
Outright denial imposes real costs on NLI that a conditional approval would avoid. NLI
loses the benefit of the rebuttable presumption of non-negligence under I.C. § 61-1806(1) during
the period the plan remains unapproved.NLI's ongoing wildfire mitigation investments, including
its weather station network, drone inspection program, and substation hardening projects already
underway and substantially funded through grant awards, proceed without the benefit of an
approved plan governing and documenting them. These are precisely the practical burdens the
Commission itself recognized in Order No. 37081 when it selected conditional approval over
denial for KEC, and precisely the burdens the WSCA's legislative purpose, ensuring affordable,
reliable, and safe electric service while protecting Idaho residents and their property, counsels
against imposing where a shorter, more targeted remedy is available. I.C. § 61-1802.
Accordingly,NLI requests that,at minimum,the Commission modify the Order to approve
the 2026 WMP conditioned upon NLI filing, within a reasonable period set by the Commission, a
compliance filing incorporating the WMP update material and the IDL recommendations unrelated
to modeling that the Commission identified in the Order, consistent with the remedy the
Commission applied to KEC in Order No. 37081.
V. REQUEST FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, for the reasons stated above, Northern Lights, Inc. respectfully requests
that the Commission grant this Petition for Reconsideration and:
1. Reconsider and reverse Order No. 37120, and issue a new order approving NLI's 2026
WMP; or
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2. In the alternative,reconsider and modify Order No. 37120 to grant conditional approval of
the 2026 WMP, consistent with the remedy the Commission applied to KEC in Order No.
37081, conditioned upon NLI's filing of a compliance filing incorporating the WMP
Update Material; and
3. Grant such other and further relief as the Commission deems just and proper.
DATED this 20th day of August, 2026.
JAMES, VERNON& WEEKS, P.A.
SUSAN P. WEEKS
Attorneys for Petitioner
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of the foregoing was served by email on the
following persons this 20th day of August, 2026:
Idaho Public Utility Commission Staff
Erika K. Melanson, Deputy Attorney General
Kelsea E. Ross, Deputy Attorney General
EMAIL: [e-mail]
SUSAN P. WEEKS
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