Analysis | With new charge, saving electricity could end up costing Missourians

If it's a cost savings for the utility to not have to buy or build new capacity then the charge is superfluous. If it's not a savings and a charge is needed then there goes one of their main selling points. Can't have it both ways it's contradictory.

It has always seemed odd to me that utilities were in the business of convincing their customers to buy less from them. Reeks of the tobacco settlement craziness. Lets leave the utilities themselves alone and do conservation campaigns independently.

Electric utilities will not build more generating stations. That would cost money and increase supply, bringing prices down. They see that as a lose-lose for them, as opposed to the win-win it would be for the public and the region. Our Government is in bed with the electric utilities yet.

Here in Connecticut, my electric bill doubled. Two rate increases were put through under a Republican Governor - two different Republican Govenors, the second finishing the term of the first when he went to jail for corruption. Our Attorney General, a Democrat, did what he could to stop the increases, but his options are few in this area. Another increase was asked for this year, to make up for the money they're not making due to conservation due to high prices! I'm not kidding. Well, that's not entirely true: part of the new increase would have gone to bonuses and salary boosts for the top executives. Our Attorney General mostly put the kabosh on that one.

Paying twice as much for the same thing gets me nothing. I derive no benefit from paying twice as much for my electricity. I'm one of those conserving power, to be sure: I've learned new usage habits, a small benefit, a dubious one at that. Maybe I should get an electric razor, the expensive electricity might make me more handsome - or handsome, anyhow. I'm sure that I'm getting smarted reading under electricity that costs twice as much. How could that not be so, it wouldn't be fair?

Well, droll gallows humor aside, we're being gouged for the enrichment of the manager and stockholders. Those same people feel entitled to their free income, and have sought to further increase our pain to compensate for the consequences of their own actions. The bad guys in this are the electric utility company managers and the Republicans in Government. We, the people, are the captive victims. Were it not for an honest Attorney General, a Democrat, we would be victimized further. Thanks, Mr. Blumenthal, but please don't run for another office, we need you where you are.

Northeast Utilities is a publicly traded corporation. CT Light and Power is part of that. It was more closely watched in the past, but recently their management has taken a stronger interest in themselves than the public good. We are pretty down on them, but they frankly don't care; it's a monopoly and they have us by the short hairs. With "friends in high places" the management has gotten particularly insular and selfish. They ought to behave like a public-minded utility, if their monopoly is to be protected, don't you think? We're being gouged because they simply can gouge us.

The largest price increase came before the gouging at the gas pumps, by the way. That was over 4 years ago. They said they needed the money for improvements to the system; those improvements never came.