‘We can’t pay it’: Commission hears arguements for and against Appalachian Power rate increase

ABINGDON, Va. – A 77-year-old Abingdon, Va., man broke down and sobbed before the three-member State Corporation Commission during a public hearing Wednesday on a proposed 16 percent electric rate increase by Appalachian Power.
He was one of nine people who spoke against the proposed increase, which will take effect on an interim basis in December and be decided after a March public hearing.
“I’m one of many thousands of senior citizens on a fixed income who’ve already been advised that we will not get an increase in Social Security this year or even in 2010,” said Jessie Stanley, who traveled to the podium with an oxygen tank on his motorized chair.
“I have a son in Dickenson County. … He had a good job, good-paying job [until he broke his back at work]. … I paid out of my pocket yesterday for his wife and his son to get a flu shot. … You put more increases on us, we can’t pay it.”
Among the other speakers were state Sens. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Martinsville, and Phillip Puckett, D-Tazewell, and Delegates Bill Carrico, R-Galax, Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, and Anne B. Crockett-Stark, R-Wytheville.
“With the conditions that we have now, it seems almost unconscionable that we would be facing another rate increase based on what you have seen and what we have seen already,” Puckett said.
Our people “believe that Appalachian Power, along with other utilities across the Commonwealth, are being rewarded beyond what is a reasonable profit,” Puckett said. “I would suggest to you that in the time we’re living in today that looking after stockholders and giving them more money when you’re taking it from the customers who have less money to give, it’s not very fair and it’s not a very good situation for any of us to be in.”
The rate increase is one of four proposed this year, on the heels of a 31 percent increase approved last year.
Two of this year’s proposed increases, totaling 10.6 percent, have already been approved; two others, for a combined 19 percent, are pending.
Public hearings on the proposed base rate increase of 16 percent, the subject of Wednesday’s hearing, also will be held in Rocky Mount, Va., today and in Richmond on March 16, 2010.
Mark Christie, chairman of the three-member commission, promised to deliver “the absolute lowest rate increase that would be allowed by the law.”
“All three of us are very well aware that people in the Appalachian service territory are suffering from the economic downturn,” Christie said. “We understand that the rising electric rates are hard on everyone in the Appalachian service territory.”
Todd Burns, spokesman for Appalachian Power, said programs are available to help people who are truly unable to pay their electric bill – and the power company must be allowed to cover its costs.
“We’ve made extremely large investments in equipment to help serve customers,” who said record-setting customer demand for energy has put a lot of stress on the system for delivering electricity.
“Output from power plants, whether it’s our own or whether it’s stuff that we’re acquiring, is more costly than it used to be, largely driven by mandatory environmental regulations.”
He said the cost of reliably delivering electricity is increasing – but the base rate case argued here will set base electric rates through 2011.
John Shepelwich, also a spokesman for Appalachian Power, said the cost of electricity will continue to rise, and customers should plan now for the long term with measures to improve their energy efficiency.
Some, like Scott Roberts of Rural Retreat, Va., said they might conserve by giving up electricity all together.
“I spent the first eight years of my life without electricity, and I may have to spend the last eight or the time I have left,” Roberts said. “I’ll go back to kerosene lamps … maybe a portable generator and let the power company have their part of the profit.”
Jimmy Fields, of Abingdon, said even a $14 increase in his monthly electric bill will take money away from groceries.
“We can’t just magically grow a money tree,” Fields said, “and it’s illegal to print money, so we can’t do that.”
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