Wonder why some Republicans are a little hot under the collar over the full-court press put on by opponents of the Ameren/CWIP bill in the Missouri Legislature?
It might be because one of their former leaders, ex-House Speaker Rod Jetton, is helping to lead the charge. Jetton, now a political consultant, is involved in a new anti-Ameren-bill group called Missourians Against Higher Utility Rates.
According to Missouri Ethics Commission filings, the group shares an address with Jetton's consulting office. It is funded, at least in part, by a $78,000-plus donation made by Noranda Aluminum.
Never thought I'd see the day that Jetton was fighting on the same side with us. The Apocalypse must be next.
As predicted, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the CWIP bill.
Two committee members offered amendments. The version offered by Senator John Griesheimer, R-Washington, would have simplified the bill from 24 pages to one page, but the bottom line was the same: it would have repealed the CWIP legislation the people passed by 63 percent in 1976. That was a no go. The version that was passed was written by Senator Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who actually made a few substantive changes.
The new bill, written by Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, gives the Public Service Commission more time to decide on whether or not to approve a new nuclear plant. The original bill allowed three months for the process - the new bill makes it 12 months for initial approval and another 11 months for the facility review process.
The new bill also requires the utility to obtain the necessary permits before applying for the facility review.
The bill has been "fixed". Sort of. Like a slovenly woman who has painted one fingernail to dress herself up.
This bill still has a runner in its stockings, a slip with torn lace peeking beneath the skirt, mismatched shoes, smeared lipstick, frizzy hair, and too much mascara. For instance:
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.
"We just couldn't do it. The risk would be too great. We don't think people would lend us the money. We don't think our board of directors would approve it. And we don't think our stockholders would think it's prudent."
So why should ratepayers should get stuck with such a turkey? Voss' answer--Lager joked at one point in last week's Senate hearing that Voss had said it nine times so far--is that he isn't "emotionally attached" to the project. He's just feeling it out in the legislature, he says--to see if we can be suckered into it, I'm sure he meant to add.
As for why this bill would be a sucker's bet: it retains Ameren's guaranteed monopoly and its 8 percent annual profits while shifting every conceivable burden to the consumers. It's so brazen that Missouri's last Public Counsel, John Coffman, and its current Public Counsel, Lewis Mills, once they got past opening and closing their mouths like fish, in disbelief, couldn't find enough bad things to say about it. Here's Mills:
Tuesday I attended the (four hour long) Senate committee hearing on Senator Delbert Scott's bill to undo the legislation that forbids utilities to charge customers up front for new plants. And guess what I learned: we need another nuclear power plant! Oh, there was little doubt about that. Senator Brad Lager, R-Maryville, chair of the committee, started the proceedings by noting that we would "hear some insights from our friends at Ameren" and he urged witnesses opposing the legislation to tell the committee "what would need to be changed for you to be supportive of it."
There were proponents and opponents of SB 228, but even the opponents, most of them, started by saying, "I know we need this plant and I support that idea." Then they'd add something to the effect: "But, geezarooney, could you please not hand the credit card numbers and savings account information of every ratepayer in eastern Missouri over to AmerenUE to do with as it pleases?" Admittedly, the witnesses exaggerated less than I just did, but polite moaning about the way this bill hands Ameren the keys to the consumer kingdom was the motif of the day.
I'll have more to say about their testimony and about how the committee sweated Ameren CEO Voss. That's for a later posting. My more immediate goal is to answer Senator Lager's assumption that nothing is wrong with this bill that some (major) tweaking wouldn't fix. Horsehockey. Nothing could be changed to make it more palatable because it assumes we need another nuclear plant, when, in fact: We. Do. Not.
The arguments for building one generally fall into three categories. The first is that demand is rising, and we must be prepared to meet it.
Investing in energy efficiency, though, would easily offset the rising demand because the increase in usage is so piddling little and dwindling every year. Increased efficiency, according to numerous studies since 1992, could whittle our usage so that it would be well below what it has been. Melissa Hope, speaking for the Sierra Club, testified:
AmerenUE, of course, knew it could count on its "regulator" at the Public Service Commission, Chairman Jeff Davis, to support its exorbitant plan to undo the anti-CWIP legislation we voters passed in 1976 and enable the utility company to force ratepayers to buy another nuclear plant. Oh sure, Ameren has been pretending that the plans for a new plant are still not settled, but the Post-Dispatch wasn't falling for that hooey:
This editorial is just a place holder. We haven't decided yet whether to write about one of the biggest issues facing Missouri legislators this year.
Our colleague Tony Messenger did. In a column published Tuesday, Mr. Messenger wrote that executives from utility giant AmerenUE danced around the "gorilla in the room" when they briefed lawmakers on energy issues.
That gorilla would be a new nuclear reactor the utility applied to build in Callaway County. Strictly as an option, of course.
(....)
AmerenUE executives and the Public Service Commission don't even want to discuss alternative ways to pay for the plant, assuming there is a plant and assuming the commission still is interested in public service, which we very much doubt.
Nor did Ameren have much trouble enlisting union support, with all those juicy construction contracts that it could promise would last for a decade or so. (Too bad that labor and environmentalists find themselves pitted against one another on this issue.)
Besides lining up the PSC and the construction unions, Ameren, having shared lots of shekels with Republican candidates last year, was set to come out, guns blazing. As is usual with this kind of ambush, timing is everything. The trick is to do it right after an election, when the representatives that carry your water for you are furthest away from having to answer for their chicanery.
And then scare everybody: We won't have enough power! Don't you see the sky collapsing in shards around your shoulders? Missouri is in terrible shape. In fact, how's this for scary?
Now you see what happens when we don't manage to take the lege back from the representatives of the greedy: we get Senator Delbert Scott introducing SB228 to repeal what the voters, as a result of a petition initiative, OK'd by a two to one margin in 1976, namely that utilities can't charge us for the building of facilities that aren't yet in operation. That decades old but still sensible piece of legislation--called anti-CWIP (for construction work in progress)--was a stellar idea, but now AmerenUE, having paid its dues to Republican candidates in the last election cycle, is trying to undo it. How dare the hog-the-money party and its corporate cohorts decide to reverse the will of Missourians.
Ameren wants to build a second nuclear reactor, Callaway II, and it wants its customers to pay as the work is in progress for a reactor that might not come online for ten years. The argument put forth for making us pay in advance is that it will save billions of dollars. What might otherwise cost nine billion dollars will supposedly get done for a mere six. Oh. Well. That's okay then.
AmerenUE, of course, knew it could count on its 