West Virginia Consumer Advocate Byron Harris has a bad case of Halloween-itis. In his comments on PATH's abandonment cost recovery case at FERC, Harris said of PATH: "If you set out a big bowl of candy, people are going to reach their hands into it," said Byron Harris, director of the Consumer Advocate Division of the Public Service Commission of West Virginia. "That's what they're doing."
If Byron thinks that the $121M is "candy" that PATH is eating, he's wrong. The candy got eaten by landowners who sold or optioned property, fancy $500/hr DC lawyers who were only too happy to do PATH's dirty work, government-parasite contractor The Louis Berger Group, snake oil salesman supply company Contract Land Services, perfidious public relations contractor Charles Ryan Associates, gun-jumping land clearing company Supreme Industries, and many other companies and individuals that had their hand in PATH's candy bowl. They ate the candy and PATH is left with the empty bowl, which they now want to refill at consumer expense.
The $121M Byron is protesting is PATH's money that they (over)spent, without a care in the world. After all, FERC had granted them an incentive guaranteeing recovery of whatever they spent. PATH's project managers, gladhanders and schmoozers neglected to read the fine print, however. The fine print said "... prudently-incurred expenses if project is abandoned through no fault of the company."
Ut-oh, PATH, UT-OH!
If Byron thinks that the $121M is "candy" that PATH is eating, he's wrong. The candy got eaten by landowners who sold or optioned property, fancy $500/hr DC lawyers who were only too happy to do PATH's dirty work, government-parasite contractor The Louis Berger Group, snake oil salesman supply company Contract Land Services, perfidious public relations contractor Charles Ryan Associates, gun-jumping land clearing company Supreme Industries, and many other companies and individuals that had their hand in PATH's candy bowl. They ate the candy and PATH is left with the empty bowl, which they now want to refill at consumer expense.
The $121M Byron is protesting is PATH's money that they (over)spent, without a care in the world. After all, FERC had granted them an incentive guaranteeing recovery of whatever they spent. PATH's project managers, gladhanders and schmoozers neglected to read the fine print, however. The fine print said "... prudently-incurred expenses if project is abandoned through no fault of the company."
Ut-oh, PATH, UT-OH!
RSS Feed