As VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports, the legislature is arguing over the $21 million CVPS owes consumers upon its sale to GMP owner Gaz Metro. [Late addition: NOTE that the purchase/merger deal is on the docket of the Public Service Board for review. It is unclear what impact a legislative prescription for the $21 million ‘refund’/’investment’ will have.]
In its campaign to get the money back, AARP cites the utilities’ own survey (403 Vermonters by phone in January this year) as showing Vermonters’ disbelief that they will ever see a dime.
The Vermont electric utilities telephone survey explores the opinions of 18+ residents on the upcoming merger between Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power.
The survey finds that Vermont residents do not believe they will see lower electric bills as a result of the merger. Some residents believe that the $21 million dollars that Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS) customers paid to prevent CVPS from going bankrupt should be paid back through a one-time refund while others think it should be paid back through savings over the next two years.
[emphasis added]
I tend to agree. Every time Mary Powell or her good friend Governor Peter Shumlin speak on this issue, it begins to sound like hedge funders talking about credit default swaps. Here’s Powell, with a response from Sen. Vince Illuzzi:
(Powell) “I’m not arguing with how the $21 million is counted in terms of our ability to earn a return on it. We will, yes, when we take the $21 million and we invest it, there’s a return that is paid.”
(Illuzzi) “The utility then gets to reclaim that $21 million in the form of increased electric rates. And that, in my judgment, is not how you repay a loan. You don’t simply advance what you owe back and then take it back again.”
The real flaw in the deal where the bullies keep our money is the sweetener: the merged company says it will invest the $21 million in efficiency, saving all ratepayers even more over time.
Do you, Mary Powell, and you, Governor Shumlin, really expect us to believe that the utility would not otherwise invest in efficiency?!
Puh-leeese.
Not to mention, if I’m reading this aright, it wasn’t all Vermonters who advanced that money to CVPS: It was CVPS’s own rate payers.
David Reville, the communications director for AARP Vermont, has one of the better analogies:
Reville said in the past month and a half 14,000 Central Vermont Public Service customers have sent petitions to the Public Service Board, saying they want their money back.
“The bottom line is it’s a matter of fairness,” Reville said. “What they’re proposing is tantamount to the state taking your tax refund and spending it on bridges, state parks, road salt or new trucks because they think it will help Vermont.”
[emphasis added]
This shell game is part and parcel of the attitude of the owning class toward the rest of us, a patronizing reassurance that they know better than we do, and everything will be fine, if we would just sit back and let them take total control of our lives and bank accounts. Powell’s got it, and Gov. Shumlin’s got it (in his refusal to ask the ones who can afford more to pay more).
Enough! CVPS owes its ratepayers $21 million and has stated its intention never to hand over a single thin dime, and to bury those dollars in the hazy “efficiency savings.” The deal should be stopped until that money is paid.
Well put!
This is just another example of a corporation using “green” doubletalk to try and rationalize its own agenda.
Hadn’t paid much attention to this issue but heard Mary Powell on VPR. It was about as bad a defense of this as could be imagined. It was really Brownie “heck of a job” at FEMA quality. By the finish of the radio program I was reminded of the quote (and I forget who said it) defending why the US shouldn’t give back the Panama Canal “it’s ours we stole it fair and square”.
If I understand correctly as the deal stands the $ 21 million will transform go from liability to asset. Now that’s magic.
And what’s this,a veiled threat of layoffs ? Cute.
http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…
not any more. Merger so fragile paying ratepayers for our loan which prevented very negative consequences for CVPS’s foolhardy mistakes is a gamechanger, putting merger at risk & GMP’s is gonna walk??? Start stepping VT doesn’t need you or the future headache since you’re showing us how it’s going to be every time you want something-it will benefit your bottom line at the expense of Vermonters.
And, even more of a joke since it looks like it was nearly five times more than $21 million:
http://www.reformer.com/opinio…
So, what GMP is proposing does not satisfy the “before executives or shareholders profit[ed]” clause. STOP the merger unless & until these thieves give CVPS customers back our money in the form of currency, not more promises, promises. Would only amount to $75. for the average ratepayer? Great! I’ll take it. If someone owes me $75., I want the money, not a promise the deadbeat debtor will give me a pile of door & window strapping or an assortment of energy-efficient light bulbs which will save me more than the $75., over time of course, I’ll do it myself thanks.
This is not looking good. Ominous foreboding greeted VTers upon the sale of VY to Entergy Louisiana. We need to wake up & learn from that mistake. Gaz Metro is hiding behind the facade of GMP which was once a VT company & many do not even know it is Canadian owned. Unless this changes, we are seeing the true face of Canadian owned Gaz Metro & it is unlikely to change, esp if our legislators, advocates for VT, PSB/DPS as well as our own governor sell us down the river as Entergy Louisiana lapdog Douglas & their mascot O’Brien did.
We also need to recognize & pay attention to the strategic location VT is in regards to the ‘power play’ & what role Gaz Metro will play re HQ & southern NE power markets as well as proximity to NY & NJ markets which is the real prize here.
Just as there is “nothing stopping” rich people from making extra payments above their legally required taxes to state and federal governments, there’s nothing stopping any individual CVPS customer from turning around and lending their $75 back to the company.
That seems fair, right?
Or perhaps only household customers should get refunded, since businesses got the bulk of the benefit from CVPS’s vaunted “efficiency” effort.
Mary Powell, here’s a word of advice: if you want investment money, go to an investment bank; don’t rip off the ratepayers who loaned your predecessors money in good faith based on the promise of hard cash repayment.
Oh, and for Dottie Schnure: if you make good on that not-so-subtle threat about layoffs, and if you and Mary Powell in essence steal $21 million from Vermonters for your companies, you will poison relations between Vermonters and Gaz Metro for decades to come. Every rate increase, every development project will be challenged and fought all the harder.
If you pay back the money, and keep the no-layoffs (except for some “executive teams”) provision, you will have gotten waaay more than $21 million worth of good PR for the future of the companies and the future of Vermont.
NanuqFC
The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods. ~ John Maynard Keynes (1933)
I’m not sure why anyone would believe any promise made by a corporation. I can think of very few that have been kept. Even a legal contract is a poor guarantee – but better than the nothing that is usually offered. Promises of job creation for subsidies have to top the list of frequently broken promises, but it’s a long, sorry list.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were Credibility Bureaus, sort of like credit bureaus.