Dude, It’s ‘Cause You’re A Dem
Vince Leibowitz | May 12, 2006 | Comments 3
Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) is pretty upset because the latest among Governor Perry’s additions to the call for the third special session doesn’t address the fact that Texas consumers are getting screwed by electric utility companies.
Instead, it would only benefit certain South Texas utilities and consumers, and that’s because of last year’s hurricanes:
Legislation relating to the recovery and securitization of reasonable and necessary hurricane reconstruction costs incurred by certain electric utilities outside of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas area.
Aside from the fact that most Texans don’t have any idea what in the Hell “securitization” means (I briefly wondered if it was a real word at all), this language is specific only to South Texas utilities who suffered losses during last year’s storms and now want to recoup those losses without necessarily passing those costs on to consumers.
But, as I said before, this doesn’t help the rest of Texas’ electricity consumers. As for why Perry’s not expanding the call to help everyone, I have this to say to Rep. Turner:
Dude, you’re a Democrat. Perry’s not going to do that!
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Filed Under: Texas Legislature
The PUf is the goose that laid the golden egg…look at this last years return. UT Austin, A&M College Station take most of this but others when pressed by the Legislaure get a handout….All HEAF fund schools would love to be PUF fund schools. I still remember Sen. Carl Parker asking UT and A&M when they took over various colleges if they were going into the PUF. The answer was no…and he responded I know anytime that someone wants to adopt a child, if they do not put him in the will…they really do not care.
I think this is referring to debts incurred by these utilities as a result of the hurricanes. It sounds like the State is going to issue and/or guarantee some bonds backed by debt from the utilities.
All but two public utilities in Texas (the two not covered in the ERCOT area) have access to securitization — which doesn’t involve any state money. This bill affects only Entergy (formerly GSU) which covers mainly Southeast Texas west to Huntsville and Navasota. Since the true-up period has come and gone (and Entergy didn’t ask for stranded cost-allotments anyway) it is a pure regulatory deal that won’t cost ratepayers or shareholders a penny (except perhaps in long-term bond re-payment costs).