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This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
Power
customers deserve a break
Pacific Power customers know one thing for sure: Their power bills took a double hike in June just prior to the summer cooling season and stand to really take off with hefty winter heating bills.
That is unless the
Bonneville Power Administration can broker an agreement from a couple of
longtime foes that would at least give some relief to those whose
residences are served by Pacific. An initial meeting between public and
private power interests was held last week in
Let's review the
developments:
Last spring, a
three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined
that BPA was violating portions of the Northwest Power Act of 1980. The
federal power-marketing agency subsequently suspended a monetary credit
to residential and small-farm customers served by investor-owned
utilities such as Pacific Power.
The credit, part of a
"residential exchange program," had appeared as a deduction on
individual power bills and ended in June.
For local Pacific Power
customers using a rather average 1,300 kilowatts of electricity, loss of
the credit means a monthly increase of $11.49, though none of that goes
to Pacific Power. The money BPA used to pay for the credits is now being
held in a separate reserve account until current issues are settled. In
the meantime, consumers are not getting that amount of credit against
their bills anymore.
Coincidentally, and also
in June, Pacific received state approval for a 6 percent rate increase,
the first hike in regular rates since November 2004. The increase
request was already in the hopper before BPA ended the residential
credit.
Still, the rate hike
increased the same monthly bill for a 1,300 kilowatts user another
$5.37, making the combined impact a $16.86 jump in local residential
power charges.
The BPA-related credit
was authorized by the 1980 law on the premise that the benefits of cheap
power generated at dams (and one nuclear-powered plant) paid for by the
public should be shared by all residents of the region -- regardless of
whether they are served by a public utility district or a utility owned
by shareholders.
But a problem developed
when public power interests claimed that Bonneville's formula for
determining the credit was inaccurate and too generous for the private
utilities, and thus penalized the PUDs by driving up their rates.
They filed suit, they won
and with new long-term power contracts now being negotiated by BPA, the
residential credit is a sticking point. Hence, the current negotiations
being brokered by BPA, whose officials are striving to lead the public
and private interests to some kind of regional consensus.
The challenge?
"One group wants to
restore benefits. Another group of customers wants rate relief for
having paid too much," Mark Gendron, BPA's vice president of
Northwest requirements marketing, said in a telephone interview.
The purpose of last
week's initial meeting was to give interested parties the opportunity to
address the agency, Gendron continued: "We wanted to introduce how
we intend to go through the process and show people what it takes from
now until we execute contracts for residential exchange."
"It's a safe bet
there will be some kind of residential exchange credit," he added.
But even some private
power interests don't expect a return to former levels of credit in
light of the court ruling.
"We're trying to
find a dollar amount on which everyone can agree and there has been some
movement on both sides," Clark Satre, regional manager for Pacific
Power in
It must be, as a matter
of fairness and in the spirit of the 1980 law. The
Washington Gov. Chris
Gregoire and
We say that while
acknowledging the observations of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, in a meeting
with the editorial board Wednesday. It may not be a good idea for
Congress, as a whole, to get too involved, or it could lead to
congressional coveting of our cheap Northwest hydro power for other
parts of the country. (Does "
Still, elected officials
can wield considerable clout and shouldn't hesitate to use it if
necessary.
The bottom line is that
local Pacific Power customers -- 99,000 in
That is, in fact, BPA's
goal and it's a realistic and reasonable target.
All the complexities of
power marketing aside, the local residential power users are paying a
monthly bill that just took an unfair double hit.
They could use a break
this winter.
* Members of the
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Source:
http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/289570308256614