Energy Costs Make Texas Unattractive To Business

Even though our tax structure is more friendly to them, our laws favor them over consumers and employees, and our campaign finance laws enable them to buy influence relatively easily, businesses are finding Texas an unattractive location these days.

Why? Skyrocketing electric rates.

Yep. Behemoth price gougers like TXU and other utilities are making Texas a bad place for business.

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Like average Texas consumers, many business owners and manufacturers get sticker shock every time they get the power bill. But companies have an option many people don’t: They can go somewhere else.

Last year, for example, Nucor Steel took a multimillion-dollar expansion — and 500 jobs — to Tennessee rather than expand a facility in deep East Texas because electricity rates were too high there, according to U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington. Nucor did not respond to requests for comment.

Consider this: Texans pay 60 percent more for electricity than do our neighbors to the north in Oklahoma. Why? Well, it isn’t just that corporate utility giants like TXU are price gouging (maybe that massive fine from the Public Utility Commission will help that….or maybe not).

Why are we paying more? Well, the disaster of deregulation is one reason:

When compared with January 2007 data, rates went up modestly in those neighboring states but have almost doubled in Texas. Many critics say it is because the state botched its deregulation efforts a few years ago and let power companies fatten their wallets at the expense of average consumers.

Others say that a few price spikes, some of them attributable to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the state’s over-reliance on natural gas are the most important factors and insist that competition will eventually come into play. Whatever the cause, there is little dispute that Texas companies are forking over a lot more than they used to. And they say they need relief soon.

Natural gas, natural disasters, whatever. The big picture solution here is “deregulation reform,” or perhaps re-regulation. Major corporations and industries have shown time and time again that, once they are deregulated, any semblance of being good corporate citizens essentially flies out the window.