Let the Battle Begin
February 5th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
We’ve been watching TXU storm the Capitol of late. By our count there are about 54 registered lobbyists for the company, many of them among the most influential players in the game. They seem to be everywhere—burying offices in questionable information, plying staffers with party invites, and generally doing what good lobbyists do.
As one staffer remarked to us, “they are like ants.”
Today McAllen Democrat Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa filed a bill that will force them to earn their money. Senate Bill 444 is comprehensive enough to make an energy lobbyist’s head spin. (We wonder if that would increase our generating capacity?)
SB 444 will allow customers to avoid excessive and often hidden fees when they switch electric companies, a poison pill that companies use to subvert true deregulation. The bill will also prevent electric companies from cutting off service to the elderly and the infirm in periods of extreme heat or cold. It will restore the Texas’ System Benefit Fund that helps low-income Texans pay their energy costs. And it will give the Public Utility Commission more authority to factor in how successful companies are in energy conservation when setting rates. And that is only some of what the bill does.
The dirty little secret in Texas is that energy deregulation has been a complete fiasco. Deregulated electric raters are up by as much as 100 percent over the past five years, according to Hinojosa.
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has endorsed the bill and other consumer groups are likely to follow. This promises to be a classic fight between people power and moneyed interests.
Stay tuned for more.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:43 am
[…] A couple of weeks ago I posted this in connection with S. C. Gwynne’s Texas Monthly article on TXU’s plan to build a slew of coal-fired power plants across the state. The battle over these plants is heating up in the Texas Lege, as you’ll see from this fine post on the (relatively) new Texas Observer blog. […]
February 17th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Good Lord, in order to afford the expensive (and dishonest) ad campaign and to pay its lobby corps to peddle lies and half-truths, TXU really does have to jack its rates! I wish I didn’t read so much; it hurts my brain to digest this stuff