On the CWIP front, we may be about to lose a battle, but we'd have to be a sorry bunch of incompetents to lose the war. And we're not that.
The imminent battle is the vote on Monday of the Senate Commerce Committee. A month ago, the committee looked set to vote down Ameren's money grab. Committee chairman Brad Lager, R-Savannah, said at the public hearing: "As is, I couldn't even get this bill out of committee, much less out of the Senate." A week later, I was part of a small group that lobbied Senator Tom Dempsey, R-St. Peters, to vote against the bill. He didn't commit himself personally, but he did observe that the bill was unlikely to make it out of committee.
Part of the reason it was floundering there was opposition from Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia. As he questioned Ameren CEO, Tom Voss, and his colleague, Tom Burns [on the left], the freshman senator catalogued all "the serious flaws of this bill as it pertains to consumer protection".
Schaefer concluded by expressing a hope that the bill could be fixed so that the Senate could work with Ameren toward getting this project underway. I don't know whether he will say that he got his wish. The bill has been "fixed". Sort of. Like a slovenly woman who has painted one fingernail to dress herself up. It is still 97 percent unsightly, but Senate Majority Floor Leader Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, apparently relishes slovenly women. He wants this bill passed.
Lager and Schaefer may be feeling some pressure from him. Dempsey, too, for that matter. Who knows? The committee has seven Republicans (Lager, Schaefer, Dempsey, Lembke, Griesheimer, Bartle, Ridgeway) and three Democrats (Bray, Justus, Green). Bray and Justus oppose SB 228, but Green is a co-sponsor. Right now, opponents can only count on Bray and Justus. All eyes will be on Lager and Schaefer when the committee votes.
The best place to stop this travesty would be in committee, of course, but it's important that we stop SB 228 one way or another, not just because of how it would allow AmerenUE to raise rates for another nuclear plant, but because it would enable utilities statewide to hijack the consumer protection process on all future major projects. It would essentially allow them to reliably deal themselves a royal flush and consumers a pair of treys.
But do not despair. Even if the committee members let this mockery loose, do not despair. Even if a filibuster in the Senate fails to stop it, do not despair. Just because Charlie Shields and Tom Voss and the construction trade unions like this bill, so what? Nobody else does. The major commercial customers in the state--Noranda Aluminum, Anheuser-Busch In-Bev, Monsanto--hate it, and they are joining forces with consumer protection advocates to defeat it. The combination of big money and grass roots opposition will be tough to beat.
That battle has already been joined. The Fair Electricity Rate Action Fund has posted a sizzling TV ad.
And Ameren, fearful of getting singed by it, tried to get a federal judge to stop it from running during the NCAA Mizzou game. No dice, said the judge. It would be a prior restraint upon free speech and the ads contain information about an important public issue.
I couldn't say whether senators have started getting many calls about it yet, but I can say that if the legislature passes this crap, a ballot initiative for 2010 is sure to follow. And with the economy slumping along, voters are likely to vote again to ban CWIP by an even larger margin this time than the original vote in 1976. Here's an indicator of the truth of that claim: AARP did a robocall questionnaire on the issue last Monday and got three times the response they would normally expect from such an operation.
Republicans would be foolish to enact this legislation. Charlie Shields may think he can afford it. He's from St. Joe, where people don't even know what AmerenUE is, and he may figure that his constituents won't cotton onto the fact that SB 228 is going to be picking their pockets sometime down the road. But once this issue hits the state ballot, Missouri voters are going to find out what a piece of garbage the legislature passed. Republicans--and Democrats--who have voted for it may find themselves scrambling to avoid being on the wrong end of the electorate's pitchfork.
