{"id":7204,"date":"2013-12-17T07:40:20","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T12:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=7204"},"modified":"2013-12-17T07:46:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T12:46:07","slug":"coal-tax-and-a-gas-pipeline-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/coal-tax-and-a-gas-pipeline-for-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"Coal tax and a gas pipeline for Christmas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n<\/a>\r\nThis was an op-ed submission to the VDT, which didn’t respond.\r\nToday’s the GA PSC vote, so I’m blogging it now.\r\n

\r\n\r\nOn Tuesday, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) wants to do\r\nfor coal what\r\n\r\nthe Florida PSC already did<\/a> for that gas pipeline\r\nSabal Trail wants to gash through here: raise utility customer\r\nrates!\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nWho wants a Christmas present of higher electricity rates and\r\ncontinued coal smoke, plus increased guaranteed profit for Georgia\r\nPower of 11.5%? They\r\n\r\nalready raised rates<\/a> each of the last three\r\nyears for gas and nuclear plants not yet even built; why should we\r\npermit more rate hikes when the PSC votes December 17th? Last week’s\r\nPublic Policy poll\r\n\r\nfound 69% of Georgia voters oppose that rate hike<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nIs a one-time payment enough to let a huge 36 inch fracked methane\r\npipeline gash through our communities while Spectra Energy of\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nHouston and FPL of Juno Beach, Florida profit forever, and your\r\nproperty values go down and your hazards go up?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThose FPL profits come from rate hikes on your cousins the Florida\r\nratepayers.\r\n\r\nAARP opposes that<\/a>, saying:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Unreasonably High Utility Rates Endanger The Health And Wellbeing \r\nOf Older And Low Income Consumers”\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nFPL VP Pam Rauch,\r\n\r\nlobbying for that rate increase last year<\/a>, spelled\r\nout it was for “natural gas facilities”, and “First is a new Clean\r\nEnergy Center at Cape Canaveral”.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThat one is already operational, and\r\n\r\nFPL wants to build more like it<\/a>\r\nat Riviera Beach and Port Everglades and Martin County, Florida:\r\nthat’s what the Sabal Trail gas is for.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nPam Rauch is also President of\r\nFlorida Southeast Connection (FSC)\r\n\r\nthat filed in November<\/a> with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission\r\n(FERC) for a connecting pipeline on from Orlando to that gas plant\r\nin Martin County, Florida.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGeorgia PSC’s proposed Georgia Power rate hike for coal plants is\r\njust as bad for our bank accounts and our elders’ health as Florida\r\nPSC’s gas pipe rate hike.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWe heard Georgia Power admit\r\n\r\nthis summer at Georgia PSC<\/a> that they\r\nalready have double the excess capacity needed to ensure reliable\r\nservice in case of unexpected events.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhat should Georgia Power and FPL do? They should get on with what\r\ntheir electric utility think tank Edison Electric Institute\r\nalready told them back in January<\/a>:\r\ndistributed rooftop solar power is rapidly disrupting the\r\ncentury-old baseload capacity utility model. It’s time to stop\r\nbuilding big coal and gas and nuclear plants, now that solar power\r\nis cheaper than any of those. The solar industry already employs\r\n\r\nmore people than the coal industry, and also more than\r\nnon-managerial oil and gas extraction<\/a>. And solar can bring\r\n\r\njobs right here<\/a> to south Georgia and north Florida where we need them,\r\nwhile reducing electric bills, and keeping our air and water clean.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLet’s tell Georgia PSC that if it approves that rate hike December\r\n17th, we’ll send them a big bag of charcoal at election time.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nMonday at Clyattville Elementary (5-7:30PM)<\/a> you can tell FERC in\r\nperson what you think of that gas pipe FPL is smoking,\r\n[last chance open houses tonight Madison, FL or Kissimmee, FL<\/a>]\r\nor comment\r\nonline at\r\n\r\nferc.gov<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJohn S. Quarterman is a Lowndes County landowner\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was an op-ed submission to the VDT, which didn’t respond. Today’s the GA PSC vote, so I’m blogging it now. On Tuesday, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) wants to do for coal what the Florida PSC already did for that gas pipeline Sabal Trail wants to gash through here: raise utility customer rates! […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[216,14,8,18,20,6124,23,24,3],"tags":[8753,8704,1763,8701,8708,8702,8710,12,7,562,8713,6597,34,8714,6966,8700,6],"class_list":["post-7204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-law","category-natural-gas-2","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-transparency","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-fpl","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-sierra-club","tag-solar","tag-spectra-energy","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1Sc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7204"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7212,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7204\/revisions\/7212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}