Re:What the utility companies don't want you to know

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Dear Readers, Did you see this news over the weekend?  It is what the utility companies have kept quiet and don't want you to know about the legislation, Senate Bill 207 and House Bill 398, they are pushing in the legislature right now.  Read the news below, then take action by sending a message to your legislator online. Missouri utility measure includes expense tracking By CHRIS BLANK The Associated Press Sun, Mar. 03, 2013 Missouri power companies would track costs for operations and maintenance for their next rate case under proposed state legislation. The new tracker would be used to compare the difference between the costs factored into electric rates and the expenses the power company actually incurs. The differences would be included in the calculation for electric rates when the utility files its next case with the Public Service Commission. Lawmakers this year have been debating changes to the regulation of investor-owned electric utilities. The tracker is part of a proposal that also would allow power companies to seek approval for an infrastructure surcharge to be levied between formal rate cases. Most of the attention so far has been on the surcharge. Advocates for consumers are critical of both proposals.  John Coffman, the chief counsel for the Consumers Council of Missouri, said the tracker would gather costs into a bucket for future collection instead of a set allowance for the expenses based upon what the costs reasonably assumed will be. He called the change "radical" and said trackers are "anti-consumer." "It's a type of regulation that removes what I see as the good incentives in the current law to encourage cost-efficient behavior," said Coffman, who previously was the state public counsel who is responsible for representing ratepayers before regulators. Supporters of the utility legislation said the tracker would boost transparency. Scissors, the executive director of Missourians for a Balanced Energy Future, said the tracker would show precisely how the utility spends its money. He said 27 states allow power companies to forecast those types of costs and that the proposal in Missouri is tighter. He said the tracker also would measure savings when the power company trims expenses and called it "hogwash" that the proposal would amount to a form of blank check. "The Missouri model is much more transparent, much stricter. It maintains full PSC authority," Scissors said. The tracker would not count labor costs for company officers and incentive pay that is based upon company earnings. Also excluded would be costs already covered by a different tracker or accounting mechanism and administrative or general labor costs. Regulators could review whether expenses were prudently incurred. A coalition of investor-owned power companies, called the Missouri Electric Alliance, was formed to push the utility legislation. It includes St. Louis-based Ameren Missouri, Kansas City Power & Light and The Empire District in Joplin. The House Utilities Committee held a public hearing on the legislation this past Wednesday and could consider it again this upcoming week. Paul Snider, of Kansas City Power & Light, told the House committee last week that the operations and maintenance tracker is important for utilities' efforts to modernize Missouri's electric grid and to create jobs.  "This is a key component of the bill that allows companies to continue to invest and have a means to recover those costs," he said. The Fair Energy Rate Action Fund, which opposes the utility legislation, estimated that the tracker could have added more than $200 million dollars to customer bills during the past five years. "They have absolutely no reason to control their costs at this point. We are going to pay regardless," spokesman Chris Roepe said. "It's like you going on vacation with my credit card." Utility infrastructure is HB398 and SB207.  Fair Energy Rate Action Fund • PO Box 1153 • Jefferson City, MO 65102 Paid for by the Fair Energy Rate Action Fund. www.fairenergyrates.org

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.

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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How a clerical error made corporations People | Hightower Lowdown

Now Nike demands the right to lie

How a clerical error made corporations “people”

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There’s a historic date that our country ought to mark every year, which has had as great an impact on the world as the July 4th birth of American democracy itself. The date is May 10, 1886—the day corporate supremacy was born. It came about through a court case that breathed life into these artificial, anti-democratic entities—a move that effectively gave corporations greater power than We the People.How a clerical error made corporations “people”
The reason that today’s Powers That Be (which are—big surprise!—corporate powers) don’t want us paying the slightest bit of attention to this momentous date is that the birth of corporate supremacy actually was illegitimate, carrying no force of law.
An old proverb says: “A lie repeated 1,000 times becomes the truth.” This particular lie asserts that every corporate business structure is, in the eye of the U.S. Constitution, equal to real human beings, possessing all the rights of people.
As bizarre as it is, this assertion has been repeated so often by CEOs, politicians, pundits, professors, and judges that it is now assumed to be unassailable truth. Again and again, we hear the establishment speak of the “right” of this or that corporation to do as it pleases, as if the founders themselves had contemplated this as part of their grand democratic design.
Horse dooties. Not only are corporations unmentioned in the Constitution, but the founders would upchuck at the very idea that these things would now be treated by any serious person as part of the natural order.

A little history

The corporation was perceived by the founders to be a beast that was, by its nature, a threat to a people’s democracy. Not only had the rebels battled the autocratic King George III, but they specifically went to war against the plutocratic imperialism of British trading corporations that were imposing their private will on the colonies.

In the Boston Tea Party, it was not the King’s ships that were boarded by the Sons of Liberty, but three ships of the British East India Company. It was corporate tea that they dumped into Boston Harbor (an act that today’s Limbaughs and O’Reillys would decry as Marxist-inspired vandalism against the sanctity of corporate property rights).

Jefferson, Madison, and others knew that corporations are inherently anti-democratic constructs of the wealthy elite, allowing the controlling investors to do two dangerous things: 1. amass more money than the public can muster—money to elevate their private interest above the common good; and 2. absolve them from responsibility for the damage done by their corporation.
This last advantage is especially mischievous. If an individual business owner or partnership defrauds, kills, pollutes, or otherwise acts badly, the owners pay the price. But if a corporation does the bad, the owners don’t go to jail or pay the fines. The corporate structure creates a one-way wall: It allows the owners to reap all of the profits of corporate activity, while they are protected from any responsibility for corporate illegalities.

A sweet deal for them—though we know what a sour deal it has been for workers, consumers, environmentalists, small businesses, communities, taxpayers, and the general public.
From the start, the corporate structure was the exact opposite of democracy, and its single-minded pursuit of private gain was at odds with the public good. The founders knew that this anti-democracy bomb had to be tightly controlled, so the state charters authorizing each corporation to exist served as rigorous watchdogs for the public interest.

To get a charter, a corporation:

Had to have a public purpose, from building canals to providing education (Harvard University, for example, was the first U.S. corporation). If it failed to perform its public purpose, the corporation was dissolved.

Was limited in what business it could pursue, was not allowed to buy other corporations, and could amass only a certain level of capital.

Faced term limits, with its charter usually expiring after 15 or 20 years, requiring it to seek renewal.

Had to treat farmers, small businesses, and other suppliers fairly and responsibly.
Was strictly prohibited from engaging in lobbying or political campaigns.

Jefferson, Madison, and others actually wanted an eleventh amendment in the Bill of Rights. As described by Thom Hartmann in his book about the rise of corporate dominance, Unequal Protection: “Jefferson kept pushing for a law, written into the Constitution as an amendment, that would prevent companies from growing so large that they could dominate entire industries or have the power to influence the people’s government.”

Referring to “artificial aristocracies,” Jefferson pushed for a formal declaration of “freedom of commerce against monopolies.” The chief reason that this was not included in our constitutional protections is that other founders felt it was simply unnecessary, since corporate power was so universally condemned at the time and was considered to be held in check by the vigilant state-chartering process.

If only they had heeded Jefferson’s warnings that the corporation is an incorrigible beast that will not—cannot—restrain itself, and perpetually seeks to expand its reach, wealth, and power beyond whatever limits society draws!

While the people continued to favor strict restraints, by the time of the Civil War, corporate fiefdoms were growing with industrialization, and the war itself fueled these new empires with rich government war contracts.

(Some things never change: Just days into this latest war with Iraq, Bush Inc. shamelessly awarded the first pile of Iraq-reconstruction money to a subsidiary of Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton. The exact amount of the multimillion-dollar contract is “classified.”)

This rise did not go unnoticed. America’s last great Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, was appalled by the brazenness of corporate war profiteers. J.P. Morgan, for example (hailed today as an icon of corporate meritocracy), bought 5,000 defective rifles for $3.50 each from a U.S. Army arsenal, then resold them to a Union field general for $22 each and skipped off with his war profits, while the rifles exploded in the hands of the soldiers who carried them.

In an 1864 letter to his friend Col. William Elkins, Lincoln wrote: “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war.”
How right he was, and how quickly his dread was realized! In industry after industry, the new ruthless, monopolistic force of the Robber Barons arose in the 1870s, muscling aside competitors, bribing governors and entire legislatures, installing hack judges, chipping away at state charter limits—steadily slipping the traces of democratic control.

If you want to know the attitude of the barons as they rushed to empower their corporate entities over America’s democratic pretensions, hear the words of railroad monopolist Cornelius Vanderbilt: “What do I care about the law? H’ain’t I got the power?”

This time it's personal

They had the power and the money, but in 1886, they reached for the ultimate legal sanction to imbue their financial empires with the natural rights of humans. This was a quiet coup, the death knell for the founders’ dream of a democratic republic, for it would put a private superpower over the people’s interest.

Not only are corporations far bigger, richer, and more powerful than individuals, but they also can live forever, don’t need clean air and water to live, can’t be put in jail, have no moral restraints of their own, and have no other goal but to keep profits flowing to their controlling shareholders.

The one thing—the only thing—that holds them in check is that the corporation itself is nothing but a thing created by We the People. It has no more rights than a cement block—it only exists by the will of the public, which grants it a charter and whatever privileges we chose to bestow (or deny). WE ARE THE SOVEREIGN.

But after the 1868 passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provided equal protection of the law to former slaves and all other people, clever corporate lawyers began to make claims that the corporation was not a thing, but a person.

This is stupider than B.S. on a stick, but there it was, a product of the sophistry and greed of the Robber Barons. Back then, this argument was going nowhere. No president, Congress, or court (federal or state) was willing to embrace the personhood claim, and none has ever acted to elevate the corporation to such an exalted status.

So where do we get today’s assumption that a corporation is fully entitled to the constitutional rights of the American people? It was a mistake!

The mistake came in the writing of a “headnote” to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1886 decision in an obscure tax case called Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. (I’ll not burden you with any minutiae from this case, which involved, of all things, the county’s right to tax some of the railroad’s fence posts).

As Hartmann details in Unequal Protection, the railroads pushed hard in this unheralded case to get the court to rule that corporations have equal taxation and other human rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Morrison Waite, a failed Ohio politico and former railroad lawyer, seemed a likely bet to do the corporate bidding—but he did not. The court decided in favor of Southern Pacific on the mundane fence-post matter, but it specifically dodged the immense issue of personhood. It held no open court discussion about it, wrote no opinions mentioning it, and rendered no judgment on it.

But a court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis (a former railroad official), wrote the headnote to the decision—a headnote being a summary of the case, for which reporters like Davis received a commission from the publisher of these legal documents. Davis’s lead sentence declares: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a state to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That’s it. A clerk’s personal opinion, carrying no weight of law and misinterpreting what the court said—this is the pillar on which rests today’s practically limitless assertions of corporate “rights.” Davis later asked Chief Justice Waite whether he was correct in saying that the court had ruled on corporate personhood, and Waite responded that “we avoided meeting the Constitutional questions.”

Corporate attorneys seized on the headnote, quoting it as the law of the land, and it was not long before politicians and judges themselves joined in the farce, either because they were eager to support the corporate cause or were simply too lazy to read the actual case.

Nike grabs for more

In the century since 1886, “personhood” has been greatly expanded as grasping executives and their lawyers claimed such rights as:

A First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums of corporate money to elect their chosen candidates or lobby for special-interest laws.

A Fourteenth Amendment right to prevent local communities from favoring homegrown businesses over chain stores.

A Fourth Amendment right to prevent regulators from making surprise inspections of factories and the corporate records of polluters, meat packers, etc.

Now comes Nike, apparently juiced with its own “Just do it!” hubris, arguing in a case presently before the Supreme Court that it has another constitutional right: the corporate right to lie.
Nike is resorting to this capricious claim because a feisty fellow named Marc Kasky has put the squeeze on the multibillion-dollar sultan of sneakers. Kasky, a longtime consumer advocate living in San Diego, got PO’d back in 1998 when Nike launched a PR blitz to counter numerous news stories that its products (and profits) were being made in some of the world’s most abysmal sweatshops.

Nike put out full-page ads and open letters to consumers, loudly proclaiming that it did not use sweatshop labor—even though there was ample documentation that its stuff was soaked in sweat. In short, Nike lied.

So Kasky sued, accusing the corporation of consumer deception and false advertising under California’s consumer-protection laws. Rather than contest the charges, however, Nike lawyers tossed a legal wrench into the works, saying, in effect, “So what if we lied? It’s our own free-speech right as a corporate person to lie all we want.”

Nike’s claim is that its ads were political speech, not commercial speech—so just as a politician is free to lie by claiming to be, say, a “compassionate conservative,” so Nike can lie by claiming to be a compassionate corporation. With its battalion of attorneys, Nike won in the lower courts, but Kasky and his public-interest lawyer, Alan Caplan, pushed on doggedly, and the California Supreme Court stunned corporatists everywhere last May by ruling 4 to 3 against Nike.

Oh, the hue and cry from the Powers That Be! Nike rushed to the U.S. Supreme Court demanding a reversal of the dastardly California judges, wailing that “corporate speech” itself was under assault. It was joined by Bank of America, Exxon/Mobil, Microsoft, Monsanto, Pfizer, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (with Ken Starr as its lawyer), every major media conglomerate, and even the Public Relations Society of America. The New York Times jumped in, warning that this ruling “poses an immediate threat to robust debate” on public policy.

Whoa! The decision does no such thing. The judges merely (and rightly) ruled that Nike was not expressing a political opinion about national sweatshop policy, but specifically was lying in order to influence consumers about the virtue of its products—a direct effort to advance its sales and profits. As one California justice wrote: “Our holding in no way prohibits any business enterprise from speaking out on issues of public importance or from vigorously defending its own labor practices. It means only that when a business . . . makes factual representations about its own products or its own operations, it must speak truthfully.”

Besides, spare me any whining about how these corporations—with the billions they spend on lobbyists, campaign donations, PR firms, etc.—might be hindered in having their say in public policy. Right now, they own public policy.

Another besides: If We the People were to decide to eliminate corporate political speech entirely (as the founders did), that’s our right as a self-governing people. Indeed, none other than Chief Justice William Rehnquist has expressed his doubts that corporations can be persons under the Constitution, and he’s written that corporations can and should be restrained from political activity.

By asserting its corporate “right” to lie and taking it to the Supreme Court, Nike may have done us a favor. Its claim goes to the core of the corporate-personhood argument, and Nike v. Kasky could be the case that prompts the court to look again at this absurdity, finally undoing the incalculable damage done to our democracy 117 years ago by Davis’s erroneous headnote.

Hightower Lowdown | How a clerical error made corporations “people”


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Big Oil celebrates century of tax breaks

President Obama has called on Congress to eliminate the percentage depletion allowance, along with a series of other tax breaks totaling $4 billion annually. Even Ronald Reagan once asked for the same in a 1985 speech on tax reform:

“Under our new tax proposal the oil and gas industry will be asked to pick up a larger share of the national tax burden. The old oil depletion allowance will be dropped from the tax code except for wells producing less than 10 barrels a day. By eliminating this special preference, we’ll go a long way toward ensuring that those that earn their wealth in the oil industry will be subject to the same taxes as the rest of us.”

However, congressional Republicans taking the lion’s share of oil and gas industry contributions have refused to close century-old loopholes in order to raise revenue. A number of specialized Big Oil tax breaks allow the top oil companies to cut their tax bill dramatically, sometimes half (or less)of the top corporate rate.

It is not as if Big Oil is struggling: Last year, the five largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil — earned $118 billion profit at a time when consumers paid record-high gas prices. This haul follows after a year the companies earned a record $137 billion profit.

- See more at: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/many-happy-returns-big-oil-celebrates-century-of-tax-breaks-22697#sthash.3YMqF80G.dpuf


Many happy returns: Big Oil celebrates century of tax breaks


 Thank you for stopping by St Louis Renewable Energy. Feel free to comment in the section below or contact Scotts Contracting- St Louis Home Improvement Projects and Energy Reducing Needs Get Your Green Building Tips and Resources at St Louis Renewable Energy Green Blog