Monday, July 06, 2009
Editorial: Electrifying rhetoric
Area lawmakers can do more than rail against rising electric rates under a system they created.
From the RoundTable blog
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Some area lawmakers made impassioned pleas during a hearing last week before the State Corporation Commission. They want the SCC to turn down Appalachian Power's request to raise rates to recoup increased costs to buy coal. The comments may make for electrifying theater, but no one should be fooled by the rhetoric.
Lawmakers themselves set up a system that kept Virginia electric rates artificially low for too many years. The delay prompted large rate leaps in recent years. Costs for expensive but much-needed environmental improvements to coal plants have also been reflected in rate increases.
Lawmakers, again, can look only to themselves for adopting a system that allows electric companies the right to petition the SCC annually to adjust rates to reflect fuel costs. To now rail against the process borders on deceptive.
Last week's hearing in Wytheville (which will continue Tuesday in Richmond) centers on a fuel cost increase that is simply a matter of mathematics. The SCC will look at the numbers Appalachian submits, determine if they are correct and grant an increase. AEP is entitled to a fuel adjustment no matter the hardship that will fall upon some customers.
This year, more customers will find it difficult to pay higher electric bills as the recession continues to swell the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed. Appalachian's commercial and industrial customers have also been hit by the poor economy. Even a slight increase will be harder for many to absorb.
Lawmakers who claim to feel their pain can do more than spout off at a hearing.
They could begin by adding to the fund that helps lower-income customers pay their electric bills. Virginia is stingy with this aid, relying mostly on federal funds or donations through utility companies. Lawmakers could do better.
They need to rededicate themselves to encouraging conservation. Lawmakers can educate their constituents on ways to save electricity, push and create additional programs and tax incentives that might help them afford to replace energy-hogging furnaces, air conditioners and appliances and guide them toward weatherization funds.
Those measures could help with today's bills. To ease tomorrow's bills, lawmakers need to do more to encourage emergent green energy producers. Generating power with fossil fuels is only going to become more expensive as irreplaceable fuels become scarcer and more expensive, and as additional environmental measures are required.
The lawmakers' job is to encourage innovative changes to produce cleaner energy at affordable prices rather than to rail against a system they created.
