Ameren UE-GREED from the Dirty Coal Industry

Learn the Issues, Get the Facts

SB 207: Unprecedented Overreach by Missouri Electric Utilities 

Missouri electric utilities including Ameren are working to pass legislation to charge a brand new rate increase fee  to every business and resident electric bill. Despite the fact that Missouri electric rates have gone up 46% since 2007, costing Missourians a total of $5.7 billion, Ameren, Kansas City Power & Light and Empire want to change the rules so they can raise your rates without hearing your opinion about it.

The bill, SB 207, is allowing a monopoly utility company to take more money from Missouri businesses and citizens. No other state allows anything like this requested surcharge. SB 207 will kill Missouri jobs by operating as a massive rate increase on Missouri employers and consumers. In addition, SB 207 's massive automatic rate increases will drive up the cost of doing business in Missouri and cause jobs to move to other states.

Despite Missouri's struggling economy, Missouri electric companies are using profits extracted from Missouri ratepayers to prop up losses from its unregulated affiliates in other states.

We need your help to make sure the legislature knows that SB 207 is an unprecedented overreach and would hurt consumers. Take action! Contact your legislator here. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper here.

Local Public Hearings for Ameren Missouri

Ameren Missouri filed a request with the Missouri Public Service Commission to increase revenues by approximately $376 million or 14%. Over the next month, the Public Service Commission will be holding public hearings all over the state to provide an opportunity for ratepayers to ask questions about the pending rate cases. Ratepayers like you can give testimony at the hearing, which will be transcribed as part of the official case record.

If you would like to attend a hearing, please RSVP to the event you will be attending on our Facebook page, so we will know whom to expect.  Also, we will be giving out a free coozie to anyone who testifies at the hearing. If you don't RSVP, you can still show up and testify so please share this message with your friends today.

A History of Ameren Rate Hikes

Ameren has increased rates by 36% in just four years.  Below is a history of Ameren's excessive requested base rate hikes.

• August 2007                                $360,709,000
• March 2009                                 $250,806,000
• February 2011                              $401,500,000
• August 2011                                  $263,000,000
• February 2012 (Proposed)        $376.000,000

HB 1316: The $115 Million Ameren Bailout

Ameren is asking Missouri businesses and residents to bail them out for costs they have already incurred and plan to incur in the future which do nothing to produce energy or provide any service to consumers now or in the future.

• Ameren has already spent at least $25 million towards pursuing an early site permit.  Ameren willingly spent its own money and as with any other business, Ameren ought to be spending its own money on this speculative venture, rather than seeking a bailout through HB 1316.
• HB 1316 does not guarantee customers will be paid back their money in the case that a new electric plant is never built.
• HB 1316 will cost Missouri businesses and residents $45 million plus interest and Ameren earnings for 20 years totaling an increase of $115 million.
• HB 1316 will produce ZERO watts of electricity. This legislation will not result in a new electric power plant.
• HB 1316 will create ZERO jobs. This legislation has nothing to do with building a new electric power plant that would actually create jobs.

A Plan with Consumer Protections: Senate Bill 406

• Ameren says it needs this legislation to maintain the option of seeking an Early Site Permit toward building a second nuclear power plant. At the same time the bill protects Missouri employers, businesses and residential ratepayers if Ameren proceeds as it has indicated it would.
• The bill also protects business and residential ratepayers if Ameren is wrong and holds Ameren accountable.
• The bill represents a compromise that gives Ameren everything it says is needed to obtain an Early Site Permit and that protects businesses and residential consumers who are being asked to pay for the Early Site Permit.
• This bill allows Ameren to recover from ratepayers financing costs on $40 Million of expenditures to obtain an Early Site Permit.
• Consumer protections include the same three requests that were made by consumer groups this past November:
  • A hard cap on expenses to ensure Ameren doesn't charge consumers for cost overruns.
    • This is important to avoid the mistakes and huge overruns that have historically plagued the building of nuclear plants.
    • Consumers must be protected from cost overruns at all stages of the process.
  • A rebate to ensure consumers are refunded their money if energy is never produced or the Early Site Permit is never obtained.
    • Ameren has already spent $25 million dollars towards obtaining an Early Site Permit. A rebate is necessary to keep Ameren from shifting the gamble and all of the risk on getting the permit to consumers.
  • Assessment funding for the Office of Public Counsel
    • This takes the Governor's proposal and makes sure legislative intent for funding the OPC is established and better secures the funding beyond FY 2012, which is the only year the Governor's proposal ensures.
    • 
      
    • Consumers need an adequately funded independent OPC to ensure consumers are protected through the entire process of building the nuclear plant.

"Ameren Demands $263 Million Rate Hike"

With an unemployment rate of nearly 10%, Missouri families and employers are struggling. Rather than tightening their belts like Missouri's working families, Ameren is asking the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), the regulatory body responsible for policing the monopoly, to allow another Ameren rate hike which will:

• Raise electricity rates on Missouri's working families and employers by $263 million.
• Drive up the cost of doing business in Missouri Ameren's rate hike plan comes at a time of crisis for Missouri's economy. Missourians are losing their jobs. Missouri businesses are being forced to downsize in order to stay afloat.  Missouri's employers and small businesses are already struggling to prevent layoffs of even more workers.
• Drive up the cost of living for already struggling Missouri families Ameren's $263 million rate hike demand before the PSC comes at a time when Missouri's employers and small businesses are hurting and at a time when Missouri families are hurting even more. In this fragile economy, thousands of families live on the brink of financial disaster.

Ameren has been awarded over $577 million in rate increases, a 26% hike, at the expense of Missouri ratepayers in less than two years.  It's time to ask Ameren to do the same, just like Missouri's working families.

"The Nuclear Option"

It seems like common sense: the market should make decisions on whether a second power plant is financially viable, not the whims of politicians.  In the midst of a recession and with unemployment at record levels, now is not the time to ask taxpayers and ratepayers to pay more money for energy investment. But that hasn't stopped the big utilities from trying to push their financial gamble on us.  Senate Bill 50 was crafted by the utility companies to create an exception in long-standing state law.  It would allow large Missouri utilities to charge YOU for the costs associated with Early Site Permit (ESP), the first step in construction of a nuclear power plant.

The Situation

• The fact that Ameren is seeking money from ratepayers and cannot get private backing means that there is substantial financial risk in building a second nuclear power plant.

• Missouri's other nuclear power plant was built without a rate-hike in advance of the plant.

• Ameren made over $600 million last year and is still seeking to raise rates on consumers.

• Ameren has already raised energy rates several times in the past few years, and is now looking to raise them again.

• Other states have allowed energy companies to pass on development costs to ratepayers, and consumers in those states have seen their electric bills skyrocket.

• The development of a new power plant is financially risky, which is why Ameren wants to raise energy rates to cover the costs, instead of using their own money.

• Ameren is seeking to transfer the financial cost of energy development to their consumers in order to appease their shareholders.

The Solution

Any proposal that were to meet General Assembly approval must have strong consumer protections. FERAF encourages you to express your support for consumers by insisting on pro-consumer provisions including:

• Robust Office of Public Counsel (OPC). Over the years funding for consumer protection has been greatly reduced impairing the ability of OPC and PSC to conduct adequate reviews of rate case filings. Legislation must include funding OPC that allows them to conduct thorough audits of rate cases filed with the Public Service Commission.

• Responsible Cap. Should the Legislature consider the utility's proposed legislation allowing them to recover costs of construction while in progress, they must include a reasonable and fair cap on rate increases to keep energy costs from spiraling out of control. To ensure consumers money is well spent, each step of the construction process should be monitored and controlled.
• Rebate. If ratepayers pay tens of millions of dollars in rate increases and a plant is never built or the permit is sold at a profit, Missouri ratepayers deserve to be refunded in full. We believe these consumer protections to be essential for the health of Missouri's energy future, and therefore, Missouri economy.

 Take ACTION TODAY!

The "Bad Debt Surcharge" is Unfair to Consumers

Big gas companies have pushed the Missouri legislature to create a surcharge so they could raise our bills without going before the Public Service Commission, which currently sets utility rates in Missouri. This new surcharge would have allowed them to charge you immediately when other people don't pay their utility bills. If this new practice had become law, what motivation would the gas companies have to track down customers skipping out on their bills when they could just stick you with their debt?

• Two bills before the legislature in 2010 (SB 705 and HB 1610) would have allowed increases on natural gas bills to pay the utility for the bad debts of its non-paying natural gas customers, overriding the current consumer protection against such single-issue ratemaking.
• This legislation would have allowed energy rates to increase, even at times when Laclede Gas Company or Missouri Gas Energy's overall cost of doing business was not going up!
• Bad debts are already included in rates. When a utility needs to adjust rates, including for bad debt, it may initiate a rate case. The Bad Debt Surcharge would allow accelerated increases without the protections of a full rate case audit.
• This Bad Debt Surcharge would have increased the volatility of natural gas bills, due to the correlation between wholesale gas rates and uncollectible accounts.
• The Bad Debt Surcharge would have been a hidden surcharge.  By cleverly attempting to redefine certain bad debts as "gas costs", it would have been disguised in the Purchased Gas Adjustment (PGA), instead of being identified separately on gas bills.
• The legal purpose of the PGA is solely for recovering the wholesale cost of natural gas—not to compensate the utility for bad debt.  In 2009, the Missouri PSC ruled unanimously that bad debt is not a "gas cost" [Case No. GT-2009-0026].
• This legislation would have decreased the utility's incentive to effectively manage its bad debt accounts and increased the incentive to write off accounts early and pass those costs through the PGA.  However, writing off accounts as "uncollectible" does not stop the utility from continuing to attempt collection from the customer who owes the debt.
• The Bad Debt Surcharge also reduces the utilities' risk, and therefore increases their profits. These companies are already compensated for this risk through the return on equity (ROE) component of rates.  Laclede and MGE are already permitted double-digit ROEs.  In other states, it has been estimated that such surcharges would enhance earnings by 0.75% to 0.95%.

Single Issue Ratemaking

Single issue ratemaking is an unfair utility proposal whereby Missouri's public utilities are allowed to increase electric rates on Missouri consumers through rate increase surcharges outside of the normal ratemaking process. As fuel charges have increased on Ameren as on all other consumers, for instance, Ameren has raised electrical rates via fuel surcharge increases. Often, Ameren has imposed these fuel surcharges even when their revenues are increase from other means such as off system sales. The result is that, while all Missourians struggle at times with increased fuel charges, only Ameren is able to pass those increased costs on to hard working families. FERAF opposes single-issue ratemaking for exactly these reasons.

Ameren Demands 18% Rate Increase

Missouri's families and employers are struggling with a state unemployment rate of nearly 10%. In the face of this struggle, rather than tighten their belts like Missouri's working families, Ameren  demanded that the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), the regulatory body responsible for policing the Ameren monopoly, allow another Ameren rate hike.  Thanks to the efforts of concerned Missourians and FERAF the rate hike was cut nearly in half.

• Raise electricity rates on Missouri's working families and employers by 18%.
• Resulted in an immediate rate hike on Missouri's electricity users. If Ameren has their way, Missouri's families and employers would have had their electricity rates raised immediately, during one of the most difficult economic downturns we've seen in decades.
• Ameren's original request would have allowed them to raise rates more frequently.Despite the fact that they enjoy a monopoly, Ameren isn't content with its profits. Buried in the fine print of of its 18% rate hike request was a plan to allow it to raise rates on struggling Missouri families more often through rate increase surcharges on customers' electric bills. If Ameren had their way, Missourians would need to be prepared for more frequent rate increases!
• Cause Missouri job losses. Missourians are losing their jobs. Missouri businesses are being forced to downsize in order to stay afloat. Hiking rates on Missouri's employers and small businesses when they're already struggling will force many to lay off even more workers.
• Push already struggling Missouri families into poverty. Rate increases will hurt Missouri's employers and small businesses but it will hurt Missouri families even more. In this fragile economy, thousands of families live on the brink of financial disaster. Electric rate increases will cause the number of Missouri families living in poverty to increase.

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Missouri Nuclear and Fair Energy Rates

Learn the Issues, Get the Facts

HB 1316: The $115 Million Ameren Bailout

Ameren is asking Missouri businesses and residents to bail them out for costs they have already incurred and plan to incur in the future which do nothing to produce energy or provide any service to consumers now or in the future.

• Ameren has already spent at least $25 million towards pursuing an early site permit.  Ameren willingly spent its own money and as with any other business, Ameren ought to be spending its own money on this speculative venture, rather than seeking a bailout through HB 1316.
• HB 1316 does not guarantee customers will be paid back their money in the case that a new electric plant is never built.
• HB 1316 will cost Missouri businesses and residents $45 million plus interest and Ameren earnings for 20 years totaling an increase of $115 million.
• HB 1316 will produce ZERO watts of electricity. This legislation will not result in a new electric power plant.
• HB 1316 will create ZERO jobs. This legislation has nothing to do with building a new electric power plant that would actually create jobs.

A Plan with Consumer Protections: Senate Bill 406

• Ameren says it needs this legislation to maintain the option of seeking an Early Site Permit toward building a second nuclear power plant. At the same time the bill protects Missouri employers, businesses and residential ratepayers if Ameren proceeds as it has indicated it would.
• The bill also protects business and residential ratepayers if Ameren is wrong and holds Ameren accountable.
• The bill represents a compromise that gives Ameren everything it says is needed to obtain an Early Site Permit and that protects businesses and residential consumers who are being asked to pay for the Early Site Permit.
• This bill allows Ameren to recover from ratepayers financing costs on $40 Million of expenditures to obtain an Early Site Permit.
• Consumer protections include the same three requests that were made by consumer groups this past November:
  • A hard cap on expenses to ensure Ameren doesn’t charge consumers for cost overruns.
    • This is important to avoid the mistakes and huge overruns that have historically plagued the building of nuclear plants.
    • Consumers must be protected from cost overruns at all stages of the process.
  • A rebate to ensure consumers are refunded their money if energy is never produced or the Early Site Permit is never obtained.
    • Ameren has already spent $25 million dollars towards obtaining an Early Site Permit. A rebate is necessary to keep Ameren from shifting the gamble and all of the risk on getting the permit to consumers.
  • Assessment funding for the Office of Public Counsel
    • This takes the Governor’s proposal and makes sure legislative intent for funding the OPC is established and better secures the funding beyond FY 2012, which is the only year the Governor’s proposal ensures.
    • Consumers need an adequately funded independent OPC to ensure consumers are protected through the entire process of building the nuclear plant.

“Ameren Demands $263 Million Rate Hike”

With an unemployment rate of nearly 10%, Missouri families and employers are struggling. Rather than tightening their belts like Missouri’s working families, Ameren is asking the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), the regulatory body responsible for policing the monopoly, to allow another Ameren rate hike which will:

• Raise electricity rates on Missouri’s working families and employers by $263 million.
• Drive up the cost of doing business in Missouri Ameren’s rate hike plan comes at a time of crisis for Missouri’s economy. Missourians are losing their jobs. Missouri businesses are being forced to downsize in order to stay afloat.  Missouri’s employers and small businesses are already struggling to prevent layoffs of even more workers.
• Drive up the cost of living for already struggling Missouri families Ameren’s $263 million rate hike demand before the PSC comes at a time when Missouri’s employers and small businesses are hurting and at a time when Missouri families are hurting even more. In this fragile economy, thousands of families live on the brink of financial disaster.

Ameren has been awarded over $577 million in rate increases, a 26% hike, at the expense of Missouri ratepayers in less than two years.  It’s time to ask Ameren to do the same, just like Missouri’s working families.

“The Nuclear Option”

It seems like common sense: the market should make decisions on whether a second power plant is financially viable, not the whims of politicians.  In the midst of a recession and with unemployment at record levels, now is not the time to ask taxpayers and ratepayers to pay more money for energy investment. But that hasn’t stopped the big utilities from trying to push their financial gamble on us.  Senate Bill 50 was crafted by the utility companies to create an exception in long-standing state law.  It would allow large Missouri utilities to charge YOU for the costs associated with Early Site Permit (ESP), the first step in construction of a nuclear power plant.

The Situation

• The fact that Ameren is seeking money from ratepayers and cannot get private backing means that there is substantial financial risk in building a second nuclear power plant.

• Missouri’s other nuclear power plant was built without a rate-hike in advance of the plant.

• Ameren made over $600 million last year and is still seeking to raise rates on consumers.

• Ameren has already raised energy rates several times in the past few years, and is now looking to raise them again.

• Other states have allowed energy companies to pass on development costs to ratepayers, and consumers in those states have seen their electric bills skyrocket.

• The development of a new power plant is financially risky, which is why Ameren wants to raise energy rates to cover the costs, instead of using their own money.

• Ameren is seeking to transfer the financial cost of energy development to their consumers in order to appease their shareholders.

The Solution

Any proposal that were to meet General Assembly approval must have strong consumer protections. FERAF encourages you to express your support for consumers by insisting on pro-consumer provisions including:

• Robust Office of Public Counsel (OPC). Over the years funding for consumer protection has been greatly reduced impairing the ability of OPC and PSC to conduct adequate reviews of rate case filings. Legislation must include funding OPC that allows them to conduct thorough audits of rate cases filed with the Public Service Commission.

• Responsible Cap. Should the Legislature consider the utility’s proposed legislation allowing them to recover costs of construction while in progress, they must include a reasonable and fair cap on rate increases to keep energy costs from spiraling out of control. To ensure consumers money is well spent, each step of the construction process should be monitored and controlled.
• Rebate. If ratepayers pay tens of millions of dollars in rate increases and a plant is never built or the permit is sold at a profit, Missouri ratepayers deserve to be refunded in full. We believe these consumer protections to be essential for the health of Missouri’s energy future, and therefore, Missouri economy.

TAKE ACTION TODAY.

The “Bad Debt Surcharge” is Unfair to Consumers

Big gas companies have pushed the Missouri legislature to create a surcharge so they could raise our bills without going before the Public Service Commission, which currently sets utility rates in Missouri. This new surcharge would have allowed them to charge you immediately when other people don’t pay their utility bills. If this new practice had become law, what motivation would the gas companies have to track down customers skipping out on their bills when they could just stick you with their debt?

• Two bills before the legislature in 2010 (SB 705 and HB 1610) would have allowed increases on natural gas bills to pay the utility for the bad debts of its non-paying natural gas customers, overriding the current consumer protection against such single-issue ratemaking.
• This legislation would have allowed energy rates to increase, even at times when Laclede Gas Company or Missouri Gas Energy’s overall cost of doing business was not going up!
• Bad debts are already included in rates. When a utility needs to adjust rates, including for bad debt, it may initiate a rate case. The Bad Debt Surcharge would allow accelerated increases without the protections of a full rate case audit.
• This Bad Debt Surcharge would have increased the volatility of natural gas bills, due to the correlation between wholesale gas rates and uncollectible accounts.
• The Bad Debt Surcharge would have been a hidden surcharge.  By cleverly attempting to redefine certain bad debts as “gas costs”, it would have been disguised in the Purchased Gas Adjustment (PGA), instead of being identified separately on gas bills.
• The legal purpose of the PGA is solely for recovering the wholesale cost of natural gas—not to compensate the utility for bad debt.  In 2009, the Missouri PSC ruled unanimously that bad debt is not a “gas cost” [Case No. GT-2009-0026].
• This legislation would have decreased the utility’s incentive to effectively manage its bad debt accounts and increased the incentive to write off accounts early and pass those costs through the PGA.  However, writing off accounts as “uncollectible” does not stop the utility from continuing to attempt collection from the customer who owes the debt.
• The Bad Debt Surcharge also reduces the utilities’ risk, and therefore increases their profits. These companies are already compensated for this risk through the return on equity (ROE) component of rates.  Laclede and MGE are already permitted double-digit ROEs.  In other states, it has been estimated that such surcharges would enhance earnings by 0.75% to 0.95%.

Single Issue Ratemaking

Single issue ratemaking is an unfair utility proposal whereby Missouri’s public utilities are allowed to increase electric rates on Missouri consumers through rate increase surcharges outside of the normal ratemaking process. As fuel charges have increased on Ameren as on all other consumers, for instance, Ameren has raised electrical rates via fuel surcharge increases. Often, Ameren has imposed these fuel surcharges even when their revenues are increase from other means such as off system sales. The result is that, while all Missourians struggle at times with increased fuel charges, only Ameren is able to pass those increased costs on to hard working families. FERAF opposes single-issue ratemaking for exactly these reasons.

Ameren Demands 18% Rate Increase

Missouri’s families and employers are struggling with a state unemployment rate of nearly 10%. In the face of this struggle, rather than tighten their belts like Missouri’s working families, Ameren  demanded that the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), the regulatory body responsible for policing the Ameren monopoly, allow another Ameren rate hike.  Thanks to the efforts of concerned Missourians and FERAF the rate hike was cut nearly in half.

• Raise electricity rates on Missouri’s working families and employers by 18%.
• Resulted in an immediate rate hike on Missouri’s electricity users. If Ameren has their way, Missouri’s families and employers would have had their electricity rates raised immediately, during one of the most difficult economic downturns we’ve seen in decades.
• Ameren’s original request would have allowed them to raise rates more frequently.Despite the fact that they enjoy a monopoly, Ameren isn’t content with its profits. Buried in the fine print of of its 18% rate hike request was a plan to allow it to raise rates on struggling Missouri families more often through rate increase surcharges on customers’ electric bills. If Ameren had their way, Missourians would need to be prepared for more frequent rate increases!
• Cause Missouri job losses. Missourians are losing their jobs. Missouri businesses are being forced to downsize in order to stay afloat. Hiking rates on Missouri’s employers and small businesses when they’re already struggling will force many to lay off even more workers.
• Push already struggling Missouri families into poverty. Rate increases will hurt Missouri’s employers and small businesses but it will hurt Missouri families even more. In this fragile economy, thousands of families live on the brink of financial disaster. Electric rate increases will cause the number of Missouri families living in poverty to increase.

go Here to TAKE ACTION TODAY

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Re:Missouri Flunks! -- Save EPA & Coal Ash Rule -- Landfill Update

Subject: Missouri Flunks! -- Save EPA and Coal Ash Rule -- Landfill Update
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:05:26 +0000

	Some news and information from  Labadie Environmental Organization August 25, 2011 ____________________________________________________ When Will County Commission Decide Landfill Zoning Issue?     Tick.  Tock.  No "save the date" for this event.  Check the Commission agenda every Friday afternoon here  and attend the Tuesday 10 am Commission meetings at the Government Center in Union.  The decision meeting will likely happen in the next several weeks and with very little notice.   An action alert will be sent as soon as we know. But there is still time to put the Commissioners on notice that landfills DO NOT belong in a floodplain or a floodway or a seismic impact zone… EVER.   Strong rules at the local level that actually protect affected residents are more important than ever now that we know these 3 things: 1.       State coal ash regulations that truly protect the public are a myth 2.       No national coal ash standards currently exist,  and 3.       Congress is actively trying to prevent future enactment of national coal ash standards.  The landfill issue represents the intersection of local, state and federal policies and how they should work together to benefit the public but often end up failing to do that.  Here's what we've learned. Myth Busted!  Missouri flunks the test when it comes to managing coal ash.   According to a recent state-by-state analysis, Missouri falls in the top 12 of the worst states for coal ash management.  # 6 to be exact.  That's an alarming statistic that must be emphasized to the Franklin County Commission as they wrestle with zoning changes that would allow coal ash landfills.  This report debunks the myth that state regulatory agencies are strong and actually protect the public from the dangers of toxic coal ash.   Read the report here (Missouri details are on pg 15 of the report) and then take action.  Here are 3 easy ways to share your concerns with the Commissioners. Ø  Send an email to commission@franklinmo.net Ø  Send a letter to Franklin County Commission, 400 E. Locust, Union, Mo. 63084 or Ø  Call 636-583-6358 Trusting state regulations on coal ash management will protect our drinking water creates a false sense of security.  The truth is, State regulations are lacking and/or unenforced.  But surely the EPA will come to the rescue.  Won't they?  Not if the House of Representatives get their way. Coal Ash Rule and EPA Under Attack!    House Reps are on a roll – rolling back our environmental protections.   Here is a partial hit list:  ü  suspending vehicle car mileage goals ü  suspending rules on mountaintop removal mining ü  disallowing almost any activity related to greenhouse gas regulation ü  stopping stricter mercury emissions standards ü  and preventing the EPA from regulating coal ash as a hazardous waste… EVER ! The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are under attack … that means you, your kids, your grandkids and your future grandkids are under attack.  There are many fronts in this battle but here's how to fight back on coal ash: v  Let your member of Congress know you want federal protection from toxic coal ash.  Tell them to oppose H.R. 2273 aka "The McKinley Bill".   This bill is a gift to polluters.  Find out more here. v  Coal Ash Talking Points.  Get the lowdown here on how Congress is trying to use budget riders to the Appropriations Bill to kill coal ash protections … another gift to polluters.  For details on a different House bill (HR 2018*) that has incredibly passed the House and would dismantle 40 years of environmental progress if the Senate passes it this Fall, read this article from Health News Digest.   *The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011 will amend the Clean Water Act of 1970 and give authority over clean water regulation back to the States.  Think about that… considering Missouri is at the very end of one of the largest watersheds in the country!  WE ALL LIVE DOWNSTREAM and Missouri is downstream from many, many states.  Tell your Senator to reject HR 2018 and save the Clean Water Act.   Tell Senator McCaskill to protect the public and "unsign" the White House coal ash letter she endorsed that would prevent managing coal ash as the hazardous waste it is.  Contact your Senator here. Powerful Words and Images:    A concerned citizen recently wrote a thoughtful and moving open letter to Senator Claire McCaskill about the Ameren coal ash landfill issue.  It was prominently displayed in the August 17th edition of the Missourian.  See it here and read what one person had to say.  Get inspired to add your voice wherever you can.   www.leomo.info

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Labadie Environmental Organization, Inc. PO Box 112 Labadie, Missouri 63055 US

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*Scott's Contracting*

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Nega Watts- Energy Efficiency News

birth of the negawatt – a tradable resource now gaining prominence in the industry energy efficiency resource portfolio standards with targets to reduce electricity demand over time standards will take a 6% bite out of retail electricity sales nationwide by 2020			Estimating the imact of US energy efficiency programmes
	May 5, 2011	Risk . net
	Increased interest in energy efficiency and demand response programmes in the US power markets has led to the birth of the negawatt – a tradable resource now gaining prominence in the industry. But estimating the impact of these programmes is not easy, as Elisa Wood discovers Many US states are now mandating deep cuts in power use through energy efficiency programmes. However, for suppliers and utilities, working out the impact these programmes will have on their business models is proving extremely difficult. Twenty-six US states, which account for 65% of the country’s electricity demand, now have energy efficiency resource portfolio standards with targets to reduce electricity demand over time. If achieved, the standards will take a 6% bite out of retail electricity sales nationwide by 2020, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Because these, and other efficiency and demand reduction programmes, effectively increase supply, they have given birth to a new virtual resource – the negawatt – energy saved via energy efficiency measures. The negawatt is fast becoming a recognised tradable resource that can be used to bid in some of the US regional wholesale power markets head to head against power resources. The first to accept such bids was ISO New England in its forward capacity market. These negawatts have contributed to significant flattening of demand for capacity in New England. Negawatts have not, however, created power markets that are any less complicated when it comes to navigating risk and reward, according to Daniel Allegretti, vice-president for energy policy with Maryland-based Constellation Energy, which operates in both wholesale and retail electric markets. In fact, they have added yet another wrinkle. “As we’re seeing more demand response coming in flattening things out, we are also seeing more intermittent supply [such as wind and solar] come in. So I don’t think the markets are becoming less volatile from a trading perspective,” he says. “To understand it, to predict and see where to take a position, is becoming increasingly challenging,” he adds. “I wouldn’t say there is a magical algorithm.” Indeed, it is ultimately the “grey matter” that must determine a supplier’s market position by taking in the many data points that influence demand, such as weather, rule changes, energy imports, regional transmission organisation information and new utility programmes, he says. All these variables make trying to calculate the impact of energy efficiency and demand response extremely tricky. “The prevailing conventional wisdom is that energy efficiency will put downward pressure on demand and prices. I don’t think anyone argues with that. The $64,000 question is, of what magnitude,” says Martin Kushler, senior fellow at the ACEEE. Overall demand appears set to rise despite energy efficiency programmes, due to a growing use of air conditioners and electronic devices. However, the rise is forecast at just 1% per year, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Retail electricity rates also appear to be levelling and may even fall, according to the EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook, published in March 2011. Household electricity prices showed no growth from 2009 and 2010, hovering around an average 11.58 cents/kWh, not an unexpected event during a period of slow economic activity and low natural gas prices. The same forecast shows electricity prices rising by 1% in 2011 and 0.5% in 2012. But over the long term, prices may actually fall. An early release of EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2011 projects that real average delivered electricity prices will drop to as low as 8.9 cents/kWh in 2016. _______________ Scotty writes: I'll believe a decrease in Electricity Rates when It happens.  From all I read about Ameren UE's agenda- they will not be lowering the Electricity Rates for St Louis anytime soon.