Category: $$$$$$

No free breakfast for you this year!

6/6/2011

Looks like you're going to have to eat your Lucky Charms at home or in your own office this year because there will be no free breakfast buffet at Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw & Pittman for you! :-(

According to this notice posted at PJM, the Annual Update Open Meeting is going to be held only via conference call this year, instead of also live and in person at the DC offices of PATH's FERC attorney. How many other precedent changes can PATH dream up to demonstrate how scared they are of us?

Despite PATH's attempt to take all the fun out of it, we can still gather in our little groups for the call, and this time we can politely mute the phone before we pass notes and snicker and giggle :-)

So, mark your calendar for July 20 and be sure to send in your "reservation" before July 14. Of course, you *could* pretend that you don't have an email address, just so you can waste a bunch of Randy's time making phone calls the day before the meeting.

We could also go to DC anyhow and call in on our cell phones from outside the building while peering in the windows of the conference rooms until we find the one Randy's sitting in all by himself, hogging all the donuts.

I'm going to stop thinking about all the possibilities for mischief provided by this notice now, before I think up something truly weird. When is Randy going to realize that he's never going to outsmart us?

They're always after me Lucky Charms.......

5 Comments

PATH over recovers another $5M from ratepayers in 2010

6/3/2011

2 Comments

PATH finally got it up on PJM's website late this afternoon, two days late. We have yet to see it docketed at FERC, however FERC has had issues with unreliable electricity this week (isn't THAT a coincidence) so they are probably way behind in getting filings docketed.

Here is PATH's 2010 true-up of their actual revenue requirement vs. the projected revenue requirement that they collected from PJM ratepayers last year. For the third time in as many years, PATH has collected lots more than they actually spent, to the tune of millions. They owe us a refund, which will be wrapped into the rates we pay in 2012. We won't see a credit on our bills, or a check in the mail, in exchange for floating PATH another loan at a paltry interest rate. We just get to pay a little bit less two years down the road.

If you want to get in on the PATH companies' financial fun this year, this document is your starting point. If you need help or an interpreter, just ask.

Still no word on the Annual Update Open Meeting. *tick, tock*

2 Comments

PATH can't get it up

6/2/2011

3 Comments

PATH's Formula Rate Implementation Protocols, Attachment H-19B of PJM's Open Access Transmission Tariff, state, "On June 1 of each year subsequent to calendar year 2008, PATH shall submit its Annual Update as an informational filing to FERC and shall post the same on the PJM website."

It hasn't been filed with FERC or posted on PJM's website yet. Looks like PATH is having a little trouble getting it up on the web.

I guess the Protocols are self-serving, to be used as fodder to have pointless arguments with "interested parties" and to make ridiculous confidentiality claims about information released in discovery without benefit of a Protective Agreement, isn't that right, Randy?

I guess PATH thinks they don't have to follow their Protocols if they don't feel like it. We'll just be adding these additional days onto the end of the discovery period this year, won't we? :-)

The Protocols also state, "Within two business days of the Publication Date, PATH shall provide notice on PJM's website of the time, date and location of an open meeting among Interested Parties." Since PATH has ignored the designated Publication Date, I don't suppose this is going to happen tomorrow either, like it should.

Those post-merger "economies of scale" are really working out for FirstEnergy's customers, aren't they? Looks like the two PATH operating companies owe the ratepayers over $13M in over recovered revenue and return, and now they're not filing their annual true-up on time. FirstEnergy, you have failed already!!!

Inquiring minds want to know: Will PATH be able to get it up tomorrow?

3 Comments

How did PATH spend your money in 2010?

4/27/2011

11 Comments

Although the Formula Rate Annual Update of PATH's 2010 expenses isn't due to be filed until June 1, here's a little preview for all of you who are interested in getting more involved in the process this year. All of the numbers in the Annual Update come from Form 1. The PATH Companies filed their FERC Forms in mid-April.

For FERC accounting purposes, the PATH project is (unevenly) split between two PATH companies. PATH-WV is AEP's portion of the project. PATH-Allegheny is Allegheny/FirstEnergy's portion of the project.

Take a look at the Form 1 numbers. You will notice account numbers on many of the line items. These correspond with FERC's Uniform System of Accounts (USofA). If you want to know what kind of expenses a certain account contains, you can look it up.

As an example, let's take a look at the numbers for some of the accounts that were part of the Formal Challenge on PATH's 2009 expenses. This certainly isn't an exhaustive list of potential trouble spots, but are some of the places where PATH likes to "hide" the expenses of their External Affairs (PR spin) war on the citizens.

Account 426.1 - Donations
PATH combined expenses for 2010 - $65,090
Compare to combined 2009 expenses - $53,054

Account 426.4 - Certain Civic and Political Activities (lobbying)
PATH combined expenses for 2010 - $378,396
Compare to combined 2009 expenses - $314,793

Account 923 - Outside Services
PATH combined expenses for 2010 - $2,376,559
Compare to combined 2009 expenses - $2,025,624

Account 930.1 - General Advertising
PATH combined expenses for 2010 - $613,815
Compare to combined 2009 expenses - $2,104,925

Account 930.2 - Misc. General Expenses - This is where PATH stuffs their "industry association dues for company memberships."
PATH combined expenses for 2010 - $97,137
Compare to combined 2009 expenses - $77,037

The numbers tell a story. PATH spent even more of your money on these activities in 2010, with the exception of advertising, which fell. Why do you think that happened? Interested in asking PATH some questions? Hold on to that thought... you'll get your chance this summer when PATH holds their Annual Update meeting in July. Meanwhile, take a look around...

11 Comments

PATH floats itself a loan from ratepayers' pockets

4/8/2011

3 Comments

When PATH filed their "Status Update" with FERC on March 7, they made the following statement:

"PATH LLC is evaluating the financial impact of PJM's suspension of the Project on the 2011 Projected Transmission Revenue Requirement ("PTRR") to determine whether a revised 2011 PTRR should be implemented to reflect the suspension of development activities."

The PTRR is PATH's estimate of yearly costs that are subsequently recovered from all ratepayers in the PJM region to finance their project. The money is collected from you over the year as part of your monthly electric bill and given to PATH to finance their activities. After the year ends, PATH goes through a true-up process whereby the PTRR is compared to the Actual Transmission Revenue Requirement (the actual amount they spent). An under recovered balance is added to your electric rates the following year. An over recovered balance is refunded to you in your electric rates the following year. Both over and under recovery are subject to payment of interest at the average monthly interest rate of.... 0.2900%. Yeah, don't spend all that money in one place, little ratepayer!

It's been a month now, and PATH is still "evaluating." C'mon, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to "determine" that the cost of the PATH project in an active state is more than the cost of the PATH project in a "suspended" state.

PATH's PTRR filed on September 1, 2010 projected a revenue requirement of $40.5 million. That's how much they will collect from you and other ratepayers in 2011. This was based on, "Major projected activities in 2011 include receipt of CPCN approvals, continue securing ROW options, increased engineering and permitting activities, and start of Amos substation modifications."

None of that is going to happen this year. PATH won't be spending your money on any of that, however, they will continue to collect money from you as if they were. Oh, they'll give it back to you in 2013, with .2900% interest, but meanwhile they're going to float themselves a $40.5 million dollar loan for two years from the PJM Ratepayer Savings & Loan, better known as your wallet.

Let's compare the .29% ROE you're going to earn on the loan you're giving PATH to the yearly 14.3% ROE PATH earns on all of their money that they are "loaning" to you ratepayers to finance the cost of "your" transmission line.

PATH's rate/finance department needs to pony up and quit dithering. We're not your piggy bank!*

*PowerMAD, cue the appropriate music! (snort, snort)

3 Comments

Your comments on FERC docket

3/14/2011

0 Comments

The comments from ratepayers regarding PATH's "suspension" have begun rolling in to FERC.

You can read the comments (or check to see if yours have been docketed yet) by clicking here and entering ER08-386 in the docket number field and then clicking search. The docket will list the comments by author. To read a certain comment, check your preferred file type over on the right-hand side and then click on the name of the file type you have selected (i.e. "word" or "pdf").

Keep 'em coming, folks! I think FERC is going to find out just how many people are sick and tired of being tormented by PATH's shady practices while their wallets beg for mercy as a result of PATH's spending spree.

0 Comments

Energy Company payoffs buy Chamber of Commerce "study"

3/11/2011

5 Comments

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a "study", Progress Denied: A "Study" on the potential economic impact of permitting challenges facing proposed energy projects, a part of their Project No Project initiative, which purports to show that failed energy projects cost the economy a $1.1 trillion short-term boost to the economy and creation of 1.9 million jobs annually.

The "study" says these energy projects (55% of which are NOT renewable energy projects) are being stalled, stopped, or outright killed nationwide due to “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) activism, a broken permitting process and a system that allows limitless challenges by opponents of development. So, in the Chamber's perfect world, the citizens who are directly affected by these projects, both financially and physically, would have absolutely no right to challenge these projects through legal means. The regulatory process would be a mere rubber stamp where challenge was not allowed to muck up the energy companies' plans for profit. It looks like it says "U.S." in front of their name, but their Utopian society sounds more like a third world dictatorship.

The "study" uses fuzzy math and fails to consider the economic costs of these projects to the locality. These dirty energy projects cost communities tax revenue, increased health care costs, lowered property values, increased costs for roads, emergency response and other infrastructure, and various other direct consequential costs to the locality. They also fail to mention that most of the jobs they claim these projects "create" are short-term, temporary jobs that often import workers from elsewhere. These temporary workers can and do go from project to project to project. Is each "job" counting the same worker multiple times at different projects as they move from job to job? "Studies" like these utilize all sorts of bogus "statistics" to inflate claims and cannot be taken seriously.

This summary claims that failed projects "impair private investment," and this article about the study looks at 6 failed projects in Maryland, two of which are transmission line projects (PATH and MAPP). These transmission projects are funded by electric ratepayers in 13 states and D.C. The "private investment" loans for these projects net an average return of about 10%. The power companies who own these projects earn a return as high as 14.3% on their investment equity. Don't you wish you could get that kind of return on your money? And who finances those huge returns, in addition to the eventual entire cost of the transmission project? Ratepayers. Is the cost of these projects to the ratepayers in the form of higher electric bills included in the Chamber's "study"? No, of course not!

So, what's in it for the Chamber to prepare and promote such a bogus "study"? Payoffs from energy companies, such as PATH partners American Electric Power and FirstEnergy, who paid various Chambers of Commerce $47,100 in the year 2009 alone. A large portion of this amount consisted of a $26,000 payoff to the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and a $15,745 payoff to the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, which were intended to coerce them to support the PATH project. This "corporate stewardship" was then subsequently recovered from ratepayers. That's right, the payoffs to the Chamber made by AEP and FE were added to your electric bill!

You know what the Chamber should do with their "study"? Print it on toilet paper because that's the only way it's ever going to be useful.

5 Comments

Help!

2/20/2011

2 Comments

I wear lots of hats around here. One that I don't talk about much is the official StopPATH WV, Inc. Treasurer hat, but it's quite an elaborate affair (think Carmen Miranda and her fruit chapeau). Sometimes it gets kind of heavy and it's hard to keep it balanced properly while dancing around the StopPATH WV office.

I need your help, faithful blog reader. Yes, there are quite a lot of you, I've noticed. You may read this blog because:

1. It makes you laugh.

2. It gives you a smile of satisfaction watching the high and mighty get knocked down a peg or two quite regularly.

3. It keeps you abreast of the latest developments in the PATH case.

4. It's a handy-dandy road map for your own transmission line battle with other power companies; or conversely,

5. You are one of those other power companies and you use it as a road map for what not to do.

6. You just enjoy watching your corporate competition get its butt kicked over and over again.

7. You're a PATH project employee and you think if you read this blog obsessively I'm eventually going to hand you a great big secret that you can use against the opposition and you'll be the first to read it; or

8. Maybe you're just a creepy freak with nothing better to do...

If you're one of our regular readers in the above eight categories (or another I didn't mention -- I take suggestions!), I'd like to ask you to make a donation to StopPATH WV, Inc.

I recently received an invoice from one of our experts and it had a lot of zeros in it. While we won't have any trouble paying it thanks to our many very generous donors, it hurts my anal-retentive, geeky, bean-counting, treasurer's psyche to see our bank account take that kind of hit. We need a quick infusion of cash before I start acting really crazy (yeah, yeah, I know, how would you be able to tell?)

So, if you find this blog useful, how about showing us a little love of the green variety? We take checks or credit cards, heck, I'll even take cash, if that's your thing. Go here to make a donation.

I don't think we'll be the beneficiary of any of PATH's ratepayer-funded "corporate stewardship" any time in the near future (but if we are that's one "membership" we promise not to complain about next year since it actually will benefit the ratepayers). We depend entirely on donations from folks who want to see us win this battle. I hope that group will soon include you. Thanks, guys!

2 Comments

The facts about jobs and the PATH project

2/18/2011

2 Comments

What are the facts about PATH's claims that it will provide local jobs and economic benefit to West Virginia? Despite what PATH promises, the facts don't seem to back it up.

In December, 2009, West Virginia State Building and Trades Council signed a Project Labor Agreement with the PATH companies that provides for "a major portion of work for Trades members". However, this agreement only covers, "foundation and site preparation for the
substations as well as work on roads and buildings."

The PATH proposal consists of 276 miles of transmission
line, of which Trades members are guaranteed "work on roads". Since what PATH calls "most" of the transmission line runs parallel to existing transmission lines with existing access roads, there's a limit on the amount of work on roads needed.

The "buildings" will exist at the substations. There are two substations proposed for the PATH project. One in Welton Springs, WV and one in Mt. Airy, MD. This leaves only ONE proposed substation in WV. I don't have details on the Welton Springs substation, but I expect it will be similar to the Mt. Airy substation. I sat in on hours of hearings regarding the Mt. Airy substation in Frederick County, MD, last fall. I learned a lot about the proposed Mt. Airy substation. The "buildings" would be a white metal structure.

At the Nov. 13 BZA hearing, Robert Dahlin of Kenny Construction claimed that there would be only 130 construction jobs on that substation overall during the 4 years it would take to build, approximately 50 jobs at any one time in each 4 - 20 week separate construction activity. He said that these jobs would result in temporary, imported workers sprinkling their dollars around Frederick County with their Motel 6 stays, McDonald's meals and shopping trips to Wal-mart. Kenny Construction, an Illinois company, is PATH's general contractor. It sounded to me like they are intending to import workers to build the Mt. Airy substation, despite the Project Labor Agreement.

Those are the facts about promised jobs in the future; tenuous, at best.

So, let's take a look at the jobs and economic benefit PATH is currently providing to West Virginia while it's in its application and planning stage.

A look at some of PATH's vendors from their Construction Work In Progress (CWIP) FERC account in 2009, received from the PATH companies in discovery, reveals these vendors:

Burns & McDonnell, Missouri
Aycock, Pennsylvania
Contract Land Services ($11,250,526), Texas
DiGioia, Gray & Assoc., Pennsylvania and Virginia
GAI Consultants, Pennsylvania
KEMA, Inc., Massachusetts
Kenny Construction, Illinois
Louis Berger Group ($1,253,323), New Jersey
Technical Solutions, Inc., Pennsylvania
PAR Electrical Contractors, Inc., Texas
Tri-State Drilling, Inc., Minnesota

I won't say that there weren't any WV companies on the list, but they mostly seemed to be involved with minor work setting up office space for Contract Land Services offices in the state. Contract Land Services provides those imported land agents that the citizens of West Virginia have come to know and love. And the more than $11 million that they were paid for services in 2009 does not include the price of the land or rights of way purchased. It looks like West Virginia isn't receiving many jobs or economic benefit from PATH's current application/planning process either.

However, all the expenses in PATH's CWIP account are paid for, in part, by West Virginia electric customers, along with ratepayers in 12 other states and the District of Columbia, with a 14.3% return on equity payable to the PATH companies every year.

What other PATH expenses are West Virginians paying for? Being reimbursed by ratepayers at dollar-for-dollar are the PATH companies' "memberships" and "corporate stewardship" (go ahead, look this one up on google) expenditures in West Virginia. Some notable "memberships and corporate stewardship" opportunities PATH has paid for with money recovered from ratepayers in 2009 include:

WV Business and Industry Council $300
WV Chamber of Commerce $26,000
WV Economic Development Council $100
WV Manufacturers' Association $2,200

The "memberships" are for the purposes of "education of business leaders about PATH". Was this ratepayer "stewardship" intended to curry favor with West Virginia industry and trades? Is it really all about providing good-paying, long-term jobs and economic benefit for West Virginia's working population? Doesn't look like it to me.

At the September 2009 WV-PSC PATH public hearings in Shepherdstown, a large contingent of union members from Cumberland, MD showed up. A few of them were allowed to testify before the PSC caught on that the union was an intervenor and therefore prohibited from speaking. One young man testified how he was out of work and needed the PATH project to put food on the table. I will assume that the rest of the union crew were also without work at that time, enabling them to spend a weekday to travel 2 hours to another state to testify at a public hearing. On that same day they were out of work and testifying at the public hearing, the TrAIL transmission line was being constructed by one of the PATH partners in West Virginia. If there were local union jobs to be had from transmission line construction in WV that would put food on their tables, they would have been hard at work on TrAIL and not cooling their heels in the Shepherd University auditorium.

Read the testimony of two union boilermakers that The Power Line has highlighted in a recent post. TPL also examines the jobs issue related to the PATH project and compares PATH to Dominion's Alternative One on the jobs issue. Dominion uses local labor, not out-of-state corporations supplying transient labor for project construction, on their proposed transmission line rebuild projects in West Virginia.

So, what does the average West Virginia working man get out of the PATH project? Maybe one of a handful of short-term, temporary jobs. The rest of the citizens get the bill for the project, plus 14.3% return on equity paid to the PATH companies yearly. And thousands of West Virginia landowners along PATH's route get their property taken by eminent domain or have their property devalued by new rights of way. Many West Virginians, especially our senior citizens, have a huge portion of their economic worth tied up in their property. When they are stripped of their carefully planned and expected return on equity on their property built over a lifetime, and in some cases over generations, they will never financially recover.

Are the inflated, pie-in-the-sky promises of a handful of jobs by two out-of-state energy corporations worth what the citizens of West Virginia are going to lose in return? You decide.

2 Comments

Ratepayer Comments on FERC Docket

2/15/2011

0 Comments

The comments from ratepayers regarding the Formal Challenge to PATH's 2010 Formula Rate Annual Update have been pouring into FERC. I've lost count, especially since yesterday FERC sort of gave up and stopped docketing the letters individually and began docketing them in daily clusters (check out the comments of Barbara Bergman -- they actually contain 18 pages of comment letters from other ratepayers).

This is some great stuff! It seems that electric ratepayers aren't real keen on the possibility that they may be being ripped off to finance front groups, propaganda, "corporate stewardship", hunting groups, PATH's advertising campaign, and other challenged expenditures.

To read the letters, search the FERC docket here. In the Docket Number field, type in ER09-1256 and click submit at the bottom. This will bring up a list of activity related to the Formal Challenge. Happy reading!

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No free breakfast for you this year!

PATH over recovers another $5M from ratepayers in 2010

PATH can't get it up

How did PATH spend your money in 2010?

PATH floats itself a loan from ratepayers' pockets

Your comments on FERC docket

Energy Company payoffs buy Chamber of Commerce "study"

Help!

The facts about jobs and the PATH project

Ratepayer Comments on FERC Docket

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