The Avangrid misadventure: A near miss or a missed opportunity? “F

ollow the money” was the phrase made famous during Watergate, as a pair of

reporters exhumed the truth behind a botched break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Carl Bernstein’s and Bob Woodward’s adherence to the mantra eventually led to the downfall of a president 50 years ago.

Since then, FTM has been little short of an ear worm — for journalists, watchdogs, skeptics and yes, even bookkeepers (at least the good ones). People use it when reviewing the middle school activities account. It’s uttered about a million times as government budgets are figured and refigured. It even comes up once in a while when big business collides with government.

It’s mouthed so often the words sometimes get soupy.

Let me clarify.

Money trumps all.

And so, when Avangrid pulled the rip cord — or was it ripped away the BandAid? — on its bewitched merger with the Public Service Company of New Mexico last week, maybe we shouldn’t have been that surprised. The total package was worth more than $8 billion, in the works for more than three years. A massive energy firm (Avangrid) owned by an even more massive energy firm (Spainbased Iberdrola) wasn’t going to wait forever to employ scads of cash while a tiny state with huge needs dithered.

I suppose there’s also another way to look at this: Who needed who more? And who could walk away without a scar?

It’d be easy to portray Avangrid as the heavy in this saga — an outsider that wanted to take more than it gave, or worse, wasn’t willing to give enough. That was the outline of a carefully crafted portrait its critics were peddling. I’m not sure I’m buying. We can argue for the next couple decades on who’s right.

One thing’s for sure. The company, which boasts big success in renewable energy — I hear that’s going to be a big deal for the remainder of time — had the résumé and experience that might’ve changed the trajectory of PNM.

Would that have actually happened? We’ll never know.

So now, let’s consider PNM’s future. Company officials aren’t talking right now, probably because it takes a few moments to put a shine on disappointment, if not disaster. But I don’t think you’ve got to be an energy expert or a savant to figure these are hard times.

In its campaign to win approval of the merger, Avangrid said it planned to assume PNM’s debt — a whopping (at least to you and me) more than $4 billion, with a B.

Say you’re in a PNM boardroom or stockholders meeting in the next few years. You’re still holding the note on billions in both short- and long-term debt. The sugar daddies from Connecticut and Spain are gone. You’re trying to make the transition to a different kind of energy business, which will require all kinds of new equipment, investments, you name it. All of which require the M word.

There’s more. Your pals at the Public Regulation Commission have just stymied you once again, this time on a request for a rate hike. There’s also this: Your service area is big, wide and difficult — a fact that comes home every time a snowstorm takes down a power line in endlessly patient and understanding areas like Santa Fe’s east side. What are your options?

Not long after PNM officials announced the Avangrid merger plan,