SB162, Least Cost Planning, died in committee today. So ends my involvement with legislation this year. Now I can get back to the things I do best, like, oh I don't know... maybe researching and reporting on corporate campaign donations?
Many thanks to the many of you who made phone calls and wrote emails. Once again, our collective efforts produced the biggest response to a piece of legislation and made our corporate representatives at the Capitol distinctly uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to drown out the "free speech" of the electric and coal corporation campaign cash. This will most likely continue until we hold "our" elected representatives accountable for their actions and make them earn our respect. As my poor mother was fond of saying many years ago, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!" The current status quo will only survive as long as you allow it. The power is in your hands.
So, the next time your electric rates go up (hey, that's this Thursday for you ApCo customers -- they're going to file for ANOTHER rate increase), you can send your personal thanks to the members of Senate Judiciary who tabled the least cost planning bill. It turns out that the problem was that the coal companies were scared that when their power company friends were forced to put real numbers on a public piece of paper, maybe coal wouldn't be the cheapest fuel to generate electricity going forward. Therefore, the corporations and their friends in the Senate decided it was better to kill the bill and hope that the consumers never find out that their electric bills keep going up in order to subsidize West Virginia's coal industry.
This is far from the end for least cost planning, however, it merely served as a launch pad. There's much more to come!
On the positive side, we scored a huge victory in the House by limiting Appalachian Power's Consumer Debt Bond Bill to only one bailout for the company.
Sometimes the victory is immediate and obvious. Sometimes it's a long term process, but a victory all the same.
Heroes
Del. Nancy Guthrie, who amended Appalachian Power's Consumer Debt Bond Bill to limit it to a one-time occurrence to bail APCo out of its current precarious situation.
Sen. Dan Foster, who sponsored the Least Cost Planning bill and continued to support it to the bitter end.
Zeros
Well now, that just wouldn't be "nice," would it? ;-) I don't really need to put a list of names here, do I?
Many thanks to the many of you who made phone calls and wrote emails. Once again, our collective efforts produced the biggest response to a piece of legislation and made our corporate representatives at the Capitol distinctly uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to drown out the "free speech" of the electric and coal corporation campaign cash. This will most likely continue until we hold "our" elected representatives accountable for their actions and make them earn our respect. As my poor mother was fond of saying many years ago, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!" The current status quo will only survive as long as you allow it. The power is in your hands.
So, the next time your electric rates go up (hey, that's this Thursday for you ApCo customers -- they're going to file for ANOTHER rate increase), you can send your personal thanks to the members of Senate Judiciary who tabled the least cost planning bill. It turns out that the problem was that the coal companies were scared that when their power company friends were forced to put real numbers on a public piece of paper, maybe coal wouldn't be the cheapest fuel to generate electricity going forward. Therefore, the corporations and their friends in the Senate decided it was better to kill the bill and hope that the consumers never find out that their electric bills keep going up in order to subsidize West Virginia's coal industry.
This is far from the end for least cost planning, however, it merely served as a launch pad. There's much more to come!
On the positive side, we scored a huge victory in the House by limiting Appalachian Power's Consumer Debt Bond Bill to only one bailout for the company.
Sometimes the victory is immediate and obvious. Sometimes it's a long term process, but a victory all the same.
Heroes
Del. Nancy Guthrie, who amended Appalachian Power's Consumer Debt Bond Bill to limit it to a one-time occurrence to bail APCo out of its current precarious situation.
Sen. Dan Foster, who sponsored the Least Cost Planning bill and continued to support it to the bitter end.
Zeros
Well now, that just wouldn't be "nice," would it? ;-) I don't really need to put a list of names here, do I?
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