Yesterday’s rate review hearing on Alabama Power at the Alabama Public Service Commission attracted an all-star cast of characters including wacko environmental groups, conservative policy wonks, power company executives, NAACP activists (huh?), reporters and more.
Alabama Power representatives gave in-depth explanations of their history and customer service and economic development efforts before getting into how utility rates are set in Alabama and how their ROE (return on equity) is calculated.
PSC staffers then gave a detailed description of their regulatory operation.
The testimonies by organizations from across the ideological spectrum were pretty bland for the most part.
Pro-economic development groups like the National Federation of Independent Business, conservative think tanks like the Alabama Policy Institute, and American energy advocates like the Partnership for Affordable Clean Energy spoke on the importance of maintaining Alabama Power’s ability to utilize a wide variety of energy sources — including coal, wind, hydro and nuclear. These groups also hit on the importance of Alabama Power to the state’s economic development efforts.
On the other side, environmental advocates like the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Alabama Environmental Council voiced their desire to have a “dialogue” and to be involved. But it was the press releases from these groups that spoke louder than their testimony at the hearing.
“We believe this and other opportunities on the horizon will help us encourage less dependence on coal-fired power plants in the state and grow investments in clean energy,” Vice President of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Ed Passerini said in their release with regard to the PSC’s Alabama Power hearings.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (GASP) and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, also sent out a release yesterday. The group expressed frustration that Alabama is not moving away from fossil fuel sources of energy as quickly as they would like. In other states, “utilities are moving away from an over-reliance on older coal-burning plants…due to their age and the costly upgrades required to meet pollution standards,” the release said.
They also pointed out the Georgia recently shut down many of their coal plants because groups like the SELC succeeded in having them regulated to the point that they were no longer economically feasible.
There are two more public hearings currently scheduled for Alabama Power. In June they will discuss how the company generates power. In July they will get into a detailed discussion about the company’s finances.
The PSC recently held similar hearings for Mobile Gas.
Although no regulatory decisions have yet been announced from the hearings, PSC President Twinkle Cavanaugh has indicated that Mobile Gas customers will see their rates go down as a result.
The hearings come at a time when energy issues are again starting to bubble up to the surface nationally.
Breitbart News just broke a story based on information gleaned from Department of Energy Loan Programs office, that shows the DOE’s $26 billion loan program only created 2,298 permanent jobs.
If you do the math, that’s a cost of $11.45 million per “green” job created.
They also quoted the Climate Campaign Manager for Obama’s political action group as saying that conservatives who believe global warming is a fraud think unicorns exist.
According to the New York Times, one of the first major decisions of President Obama’s second term could be approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which they say would be a profound disappointment to “environmental advocates who have made the project a symbolic test of the president’s seriousness on climate change.”
The Times believes, though, that a tradeoff is likely.
Obama would approve the pipeline, which would bring tens of thousands of jobs with it, but would then seek to satisfy environmentalists with a major climate policy announcement.
“Could some kind of deal be in the offing,” the Times asks, “a major climate policy announcement on, for example, power plant regulation or renewable energy incentives — to ease the sting of the pipeline approval?”
The Times said that Paul Bledsoe, a former energy advisor to Bill Clinton, suggested that the president should “use the opportunity to announce a new regime of regulation for existing coal-fired power plants.”
Others have said that the President could launch a renewed push for a national clean energy standard, requiring that a certain percentage of U.S. electricity be produced from “carbon-free sources.”
Back in Alabama, PSC President Twinkle Cavanaugh says the PSC will not mandate that the Power Company produce any portion of its energy from alternative sources.
What else is going on?
1. Undercover inside a late-term abortion clinic
2. Rumors & Rumblings
3. Internet sales tax bill advancing in D.C.
4. Alabama delegation punches above its weight
5. Who will be the next finance director?
