This story originally appeared in New York Focus , a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here .

In theory, the process that determines your energy bills plays out in public, through innumerable documents and comments posted online and hearings that are open to all.

In practice, watchdogs say, the key decisions are made behind closed doors, in confidential settlement proceedings where utilities set the agenda and bring legal firepower that is impossible for most other participants to match.

That secretive settlement process was a flashpoint at a state Senate hearing Tuesday on spiraling energy bills . Over the course of the day, senators questioned state and city officials, advocates, and utility representatives about the state’s energ

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