Area legislators clarified their intervention status Wednesday in the state Department of Public Utilities’ into Berkshire Gas Co.’s Forecast and Supply Plan for the next four years.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Amherst, together with Reps. Peter Kocut, D-Northampton; Ellen Story, D-Amherst; Paul Mark and John Scibak, D-South Hadley, issued a joint statement outlining the change of their joint full intervenor status in the case to limited intervenor status.
The change comes as the attorney for several intervenors — Boston attorney Richard Kanoff — has worked to disentangle his arrangements to represent the Pipeline Awareness Network for the Northeast, the towns of Montague, Deerfield, Amherst and Hadley as well as the legislators.
The DPU on Aug. 31 granted full participant status — allowed to present witnesses and formally question lawyers — to the four towns and the area legislators, as well as to the state Department of Energy Resources and office of the Attorney General. But it granted only limited intervention status to PLAN-NE and objected to Kanoff’s role as lawyer for the towns, legislators and PLAN-NE, which it said “raised procedural, privilege, and confidentiality concerns.” It called for addressing those concerns and for “minimizing any appearances of conflict, real or perceived.”
As limited intervenors, the legislators are not required to have an attorney, and the towns will continue to be represented by Kanoff, although they are required to have a formal agreement to avoid “procedural, privilege and confidentiality issues.”
“After careful consideration of the concerns raised by the Department, we have decided the best resolution is to move forward as limited participants,” the legislators wrote.