Committee lays over bill to make gas utility infrastructure rider permanent after contested debate

Representative Sexton brought House File 3830 to the Energy Finance and Policy Committee on March 12, asking lawmakers to remove a vendor-name reporting requirement and make permanent the gas utility infrastructure cost rider (the GUIC rider) that helps utilities recover costs for mandated safety and integrity work.

The committee heard multiple witnesses. Ray Gardner, area vice president of gas engineering at Xcel Energy, described the GUIC rider as a narrowly focused mechanism to recover costs for mandated relocations, federal-code required safety work and integrity management. "The GUIC is about maintaining the utility infrastructure we already have," Gardner said, adding that the rider is not for building new pipelines but for projects driven by federal regulations.

Consumer advocates and regulators pushed back. Annie Levinson Faulk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota, said cost trackers like GUIC "lighten utilities' responsibility to manage risk and shift some of that burden to ratepayers," and recommended sunseting the rider so routine infrastructure investment is reviewed in full rate cases. A Department of Commerce official told the committee that since the GUIC's creation, Xcel Energy has recovered more than $400,000,000 through the rider and argued that putting those costs in rate cases improves scrutiny and incentives to control costs.

Labor and construction interests urged retention of the rider for planning stability. Kevin Prentice, representing a construction labor organization, said the rider supports thousands of workers who perform relocations and replacements, and warned that sunsets create uncertainty that can raise costs and disrupt scheduling.

After extended questioning and a roll-call vote, the motion to refer HF3830 to the general register failed to receive the nine votes required. The clerk recorded individual ayes and nays; because the motion did not reach the threshold, the committee laid the bill over for further work. Representative Sexton said he would continue discussions with stakeholders, including on a compromise to redact vendor names in public filings while preserving oversight.

The committee did not take final action to change the GUIC rider on March 12; members signaled both substantive disagreement about whether riders erode incentives and practical interest in refining vendor-reporting language before a further vote.