Extension Proposed for Northern Pass Discovery Deadline

Attorneys for Northern Pass and attorneys for several interveners in the regulatory review process before the N.H. Site Evaluation Committee (SEC) have come to an agreement to extend the deadline by which interveners can file motions to compel NP to answer legal discovery questions proposed by interveners.  The new deadline proposed by NP and agreed to by interveners will be August 15. Although it is expected that the SEC will grant the motion to extend the deadline to August 15, note that the extension will not be final unless and until the SEC grants the motion.  This extension would apply to data requests that were proposed on May 31 and June 7, 2016.

Legal discovery is part of the SEC’s administrative review  process, in which parties to the SEC review can ask questions of the applicant (in writing, under oath) to acquire additional information about the 27,000-page application presented by NP in October 2015.  This legal discovery informs “pre-filed testimony” that each intervener must file with the SEC by Nov. 15, 2016.  This written pre-filed testimony presents formal arguments supporting the position of each intervener regarding the NP project.   NP will then have the opportunity to propose its own legal discovery questions of interveners, based on the pre-filed testimony.  Once the discovery process is complete, the SEC will conduct an adjudicatory hearing (likely next spring) at which all parties will have the opportunity to cross examine one another’s written submissions.  This hearing is conducted in public before the seven-member SEC subcommittee that will ultimately decide whether NP should be granted or denied a siting certificate.   To review the current written record on the NP application before the SEC, go to the SEC webpage for the NP project.