Here Come Obama’s ‘Necessarily Skyrocketing’ Electricity Rates

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President Obama’s infamous words—saying electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” under his cap-and-trade program that would impose a costly energy tax on American consumers—are set to come true. Just ask the market.

Although cap and trade is not law, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) backdoor train wreck of energy regulations is forcing utilities to file for significant rate hikes in years to come because of the upgrades they will have to make or the complete shutdown of older plants.

Take Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E), for instance. In what’s labeled as an “environmental cost recovery,” the utility says ratepayers will see their electric bills increase 19.2 percent by 2016. Why? LG&E spokesman Chip Keeling answered,

The EPA is forcing utilities to do this. We don’t have a choice. It’s not a question of are we going to meet them. The question is when and how and how much money. We have to meet these regulations because the EPA is mandating it for us to do it. They’re forcing us to do it.

LG&E isn’t the only one building cost increases into its projects as a result of EPA regulations. PJM is a regional transmission organization that manages the electric grid and coordinates the wholesale electricity market for 13 states and the District of Columbia. The organization conducts electricity capacity auctions for future years to meet anticipated demand, and it projects EPA regulations are going to increase capacity costs in the magnitude of $2 billion–$3 billion for a one-year period. PJM also “concluded that “60 to 80%” of the increase in generators bid costs in the May 2011 auction was due to environmental regulations.”

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Not only that.
Our electric company (SCE) has forced everyone to switch to so-called ”smart meters.”
A smart meter can be turned off by SCE whenever they want.
For as long as they want.
Anywhere from milliseconds to hours.
But even as SCE screws with our digital alarm clocks they still charge us full price for their juice.
A tiered plan would make sense IF they read the meter monthly and made the bill up based on actual use.
But SCE doesn’t do that.
They read the meter every 60 days and guestimate our first 30 days at a HIGHER rate than real measures would.
Then, for the 31-60th days we pay a cheaper rate since we only used so little.
Cute rip-off.
About $6/60 days/home at the least.
Multiplied by 3 million homes.
A cool $108 million per year.
And that’s a conservative estimate!

AEP Ohio says they’re going to have to lay off 600 jobs and raise rates 10-15% because of this.

The attack on our country and economy by regulatory agencies will continue until we take back the country in 2012.

These agencies need to be slashed or eliminated, and what remains must be required to do an economic impact statement for all new regulations. Impact of over $50 million nationwide, it has to be approved by congress.

No more of these multi-billion dollar decisions without proper vetting and approval.