The company that bought out our local electric & gas supplier New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) about a year ago (Iberdrola), agreed as part of the deal to not request a rate increase for a year. They lied. Their first request came in January, just four months after the purchase (Albany Times-Union story). The Public Service Commission told them to stuff it. Now it’s been a full year and they’re back, almost to the day, with their hands out. From the Press & Sun-Bulletin (NYSEG asks for double-digit rate increases):

When Iberdrola SA of Spain bought New York State Electric and Gas Corp. one year ago this month, it agreed to no rate increases for a year. That year is up, and the utility companies is asking for state approval for increases in electricity and natural gas rates that could cost area households $453 a year.

Under the proposals, the average NYSEG residential electric bill would go up $12.39, or 18.6 percent a month, while natural gas would go up $25.34, or 17.4 percent.

To be fair, it seems that NYSEG has not raised rates (although they’ve repeatedly tried) since the mid-1990s. At least according to the P&SB story. Funny thing though, my electric and gas bills have been steadily climbing over that period of time. I’ve been a NYSEG customer since the mid-1990s and before. I can’t categorically prove it, but I heavily suspect rates have gone up during that time–which wouldn’t surprise me…that the P&SB gets it wrong again and does not fact check a story.

The main reason our esteemed governor, David Paterson, and the New York State legislature approved the sale to Iberdrola is because Iberdrola is supposed to invest $2 billion in wind farms in New York. Yeah right. When pigs fly. Aren’t you glad in our day and age that empty platitudes are an acceptable substitute for keeping one’s word? Here’s an idea: Forget spending $2B on wind farms and give the rate payers a rate CUT for the next 25 years!

Of course, if Congress passes the cap & tax climate change legislation as they so deeply desire to do, these kinds of increases will seem like chump change because your gas & electric rates will go up 100% (see the excellent analysis of the proposed climate change legislation by the Heritage Foundation). But it won’t happen all at once. The sleezes in Congress will push the full effects of this insidious legislation out so the biggest bite won’t happen until starting around 2025–and then, watch out (see chart for what happens to rates in New York; and here for other states). In New York, electric rates will nearly double by the time we hit 2035.

Technorati Tags: Iberdrola, NYSEG, gas & electric rates, New York Public Service Commission, Waxman-Markey, climate change, Gov. David Paterson, New York State legislature

My latest rant has to do with kool aide drinkers who believe man is causing global warming. May I point out a few FACTS about this issue? (1) For the past 10 years, the average temperature globally has either gone down or held constant. Although you don’t hear this in the mainstream media, it is an established fact. (2) The sun is the largest producer of energy in our corner of the galaxy, and is responsible for heating the earth. The sun’s energy ebbs and flows in cycles, resulting in warmer years and cooler years on earth. (3) Man cannot reliably predict temperatures and weather beyond two weeks, let alone 20 or 30 years in the future.

The whole issue of “warming” of the planet is really quite easy to understand. It takes a willing suspension of disbelief in order to support the claim that man is causing the earth to warm to unnaturally high levels, consequently leading to ocean levels rising, crops burning, etc. In other words, just to be clear, man-caused global warming is a COMPLETE FICTION.

I have no problem with people who want to believe the fiction. I do have a problem if those people inhabit positions of power that force me to pay money for their tomfoolery.

There is an unelected group of 16 people who belong to the New York State Environmental Board (part of the NYS Environmental Conservation Department) who have just voted to adopt regulations put forth by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This initiative is a group of 10 northeastern states, like New York, who want to “cure” global warming. How do they plan to do it? By taxing citizens! Yes, you read that correctly. It seems the solution to a warming planet is to take money out of my pocket as a taxpayer. Which, of course, is not a solution at all and points out the rank hypocrisy of the left.

The regulations just adopted by this group of 16 unelected people will force energy producers in New York to pay for permits to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. You know, CO2–the gas that you emit EVERY TIME YOU BREATHE OUT. That carbon dioxide. The naturally-occurring-in-nature carbon dioxide. We used to joke that one day Albany would put a tax on breathing. Now…they actually have!

Independent Power Producers of New York (IPPNY), a trade group trying to stop this nuttiness, has estimated the new regulation by the Environmental Board will cost $8 per ton of CO2 emitted, meaning our power bills will go up 9%–tacked on to the insanely high rates we pay now. And for what? So the state will have more money to give away to welfare slugs. This has NOTHING to do with “saving the planet” and everything to do with political power and figuring out more ways to shake down hard working citizens.

Sixteen unelected people, with the raise of a hand and stroke of a pen, have just taxed every citizen in New York State. It’s unfair, it’s unethical, and I believe it’s illegal. Who are these 16 people? Wish I knew. Search the web and you’ll find it is the head of 10 state agencies (appointed by the governor) and six citizens, also appointed by the governor. But no names are published–or I would list them here. Perhaps they have something to be ashamed of?

Bottom line: The nut-jobs who believe in the global warming fairy tale are costing you money. It MATTERS whom you elect to state and local office. Vote conservative and keep your money (and your sanity).

Technorati Tags: New York State, global warming, global warming hoax, New York Environmental Board, New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Independent Power Producers of New York

Never mind that $43 million is a small portion of a single school district’s budget in Upstate, let alone all of them combined. It sounds like a big number and most people only read headlines anyway, right?

So what does the good Senator propose to do about high energy prices for schools (because like all good libs, gov’ment is the answer to every problem)? Why, Chucky has concocted legislation that would allow the Secretary of Energy to identify the “hardest hit” districts and give them money–to buy high-priced hybrid buses! Why? Because those buses supposedly get better gas mileage than plain old yellow buses do. Maybe it’s the color.

The name of Chucky’s brilliant plan is the “School Energy Crisis Relief Act of 2008.” Everything with libs is a crisis. If it weren’t a crisis, you wouldn’t fall for their lies and willingly give up your freedoms. Here’s a portion of the natural gas that escaped from Schumer’s oral cavity on the subject:

“No school should have to make a choice between books and transporting kids. Diesel fuel costs are slamming school districts and placing too heavy of a burden on our schools’ budgets,” Schumer said. “An enhanced hybrid school bus tax credit will ease some of that burden so that schools can put resources where it matters: towards our kids’ education.” (WBNG 12 Action News)

There you have it. Buy hybrid buses and it will make our kids smarter. Wow, I wish I were as smart as ole Chucky.

My take: The quickest way to lower energy prices requires NO MONEY. If Congress, including Chucky Schumer, would sign legislation allowing off-shore drilling for oil, that fact alone would help deflate oil speculation and lower the price per barrel by perhaps 25% or more, making fuel more affordable not only for schools, but for you and me too. We need more energy supply, and oil (and natural gas) are the quickest ways to get it.

The reason Congress hasn’t signed the legislation allowing off-shore drilling? The Democrats. They closed down Congress last week and literally shut the lights off so such a vote could not be taken. Why? Because the enviro-wacko lobby has the Dems in their hip pocket. These hard-left socialist wackos (people like Al Gore) think man is an infestation on the planet and want us all to ride bicycles everywhere. Except for important people like Al, and Chucky, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They’ll still get to take jets. You and me? Stick us on a hybrid bus or ride a bike.

Wake up America. Vote against Democrats in the next election and take your country back!

Technorati Tags: Chuck Schumer, Hybrid Tax Credit, School Energy Crisis Relief Act of 2008, school energy, Congressional shut-down, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi

Once upon a time big bad energy companies did something really really bad. They wanted to drill for natural gas where (gasp) natural gas actually existed! Can you imagine raping the ground for something natural? Anyway, these big bad energy companies were of course enabled by and codependent on really evil companies like Halliburton (where Dick Cheney used to be CEO, dontcha know).

Anyway, when the big bad energy companies came to town, they wanted to use something more precious than birth control pills: They wanted our…water (oh no!). Yes little boys and girls, energy companies that drill for natural gas use lots and lots of water, which means you won’t have any to drink, nor any to flush the toilet, nor any to put out a fire in your house (a fire caused by global warming of course). And worst of all, you won’t have any water for your swimming pool!

In order to get enough water to drill, these big bad energy companies asked to buy it from local towns and villages, who had more than enough for the townsfolk. The good leaders from almost all the towns and villages refused to sell any water to the big bad energy companies. But there was one bad leader who did (boo). But don’t worry little kiddies, ’cause really good organizations with names like Citizen Action and the ACLU rode into town and voted the bad leader out of office, and sued the local town and energy companies into the next millennium and saved the day (yeah!).

The End.

Editor’s Note: Although a few liberties have been taken with the above fairy tale, please read Johnson City OKs water sale to gas drillers in today’s Press & Sun-Bulletin and tell me if your intelligence is as insulted as mine.

Technorati Tags: natural gas drilling, Binghamton, Broome County, environmental fairy tales, waste water for natural gas drilling

To recap where we are at: The United States has more natural gas deposits sitting under it than Saudi Arabia has oil reserves–if we can only get to it and get it out of the ground. Given that we are way too dependent on foreign oil, a fact nobody disputes on either the right or the left, it behooves us to figure out how to get those reserves out of the ground, and soon.

Enter something called the Marcellus Shale Formation. Shale is a type of rock that sits under much of New York State. The Marcellus Shale Formation (named for Marcellus, NY) is found as far south as northern Virginia, as far west as Ohio, and includes a parts of West Virginia and Maryland. But it seems its heaviest concentration is Pennsylvania and New York.

Marcellus Shale produces a lot of natural gas in and around Greater Binghamton. I know of two local instances where people who have drilled a bit too deeply for their wells (for water) have hit natural gas pockets and the natural gas has contaminated their water supply. One of them causes the homeowner’s water to have so much natural gas the water itself ignites if you hold a flame to it! No lie. Read it for yourself: Couple’s faucets spout fiery mix.

The only problem with the gas sitting below me right now is how you get it out of the ground. Drilling shale is costly, and in order to get it out, you have to drill not only down (vertically), but across (horizontally) to break up the rock. This involves using a great deal of water which a) has nasty chemicals used to break apart the shale, and b) after the water is removed, it has even nastier heavy metals and some radioactivity in it. Treating and disposing of that waste water is an issue. You can’t run it down a local creek or river as it is toxic. So you have to put it on a truck, or a train, and take it to a special treatment plant. Currently, the closest plant to us is near Pittsburgh about 280 miles away. Expensive.

When you read about these issues in the Press & Sun-Bulletin, like today’s article titled, Questions surround gas-drilling waste water, you’ll get the standard leftist line that “this can never work…it will destroy the environment…big bad companies like Halliburton will get involved…you’re going to die.” Typical. No doubt local Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo’s office is feeding much of this pap to the P&SB on a regular basis as she’s anti-anything that would destroy a single leaf or blade of grass (i.e., an enviro-nutjob).

What do I think? I think we need to be careful for sure. We need to understand how and where waste water will be treated. But we need to figure it out and move forward–quickly. The alternative of not drilling and not becoming energy independent is not the answer. We’re pretty smart, we Americans. I think we can figure out how to get the natural gas at a cost and in a method that will benefit everyone and not poison the local population.

What we can’t do is sit on our thumbs and let the naysayers like Lupardo and other lefty-loonies tell us “it can’t be done…it’s too hard…you’ll die.” Tell them to take a hike. And while you’re at it, be sure you don’t vote for them come November.

Technorati Tags: Marcellus Shale Formation, waste water, natural gas drilling, toxic byproducts, Donna Lupardo, Binghamton

As I’ve written before, the Iberdrola/NYSEG deal has been a boondoggle from the start. A few people at the top will get a boatload of money for brokering the deal and retire to an island in the South Seas. Ratepayers (you and I) will get hosed with higher rates. And a foreign company will own a key piece of America’s infrastructure–something that should NEVER happen.

It’s no surprise to me that Senator Schumer is lending his gaseous voice to help the cause. He wants Iberdrola to dedicate a piddling $640 million in a fund to offset the rate hikes they’ll ram through as soon as they take ownership. And he wants them to invest more than $2 billion on wind farms. (If we could only harness the wind that emanates from Schumer’s mouth, we would have a renewable energy source for years to come!)

Schumer also wants the Public Service Commission (PSC) to remove its restriction that Iberdrola sell off its wind farms. With deregulation of the power industry, utilities that deliver the power are supposed to divest themselves of operations that produce the power, like coal burning plants, nuclear power plants, hydro-electric plants and the like. Because of the current energy “crisis,” Schumer does what libs always do–they want to break or change the laws they themselves created.

Why would Chuckie be in favor of a foreign takeover of our infrastructure? Money, of course. I smell a payoff. You can be sure if Iberdrola consummates the deal, they, or their shell corporations, will heavily donate to Chuckie’s campaign/retirement funds. Color me cynical…but I predict one day in the not-too-distant future you’ll hear about “irregular” payments to Schumer’s coffers from Iberdrola.

When will New Yorkers wake up and bounce this jerk out of office? Let’s hope the PSC can stand up to the pressure of this windbag and stop the deal.

Technorati Tags: Senator Charles Schumer, Iberdrola, Energy East, NYSEG, political payoff, New York Public Service Commission, wind farms

Here’s a statement uttered by our astonishingly brilliant governor:

In his statement, Paterson said he looks forward to the PSC’s “speedy resolution of issues in the acquisition case before it. I am hopeful that the outcome will be one that provides an opportunity to Iberdrola to bring its financial strength and commitment to expand renewable energy generation in the state, while also protecting the interests of ratepayers in the Energy East service area.”
(Press & Sun-Bulletin, June 6)

Translation: Get off your rear-ends Public Service Commission, and get this deal done. I’m waiting for “contributions” from Iberdrola to my campaign re-election fund!

Wake up people.

Technorati Tags: Iberdrola, Energy East, NYSEG, David Paterson, wind power

Today, Mr. Hinchey, the man who wants to Stalin-like control the radio airwaves (with the “Fairness Doctrine”), is going to propose another good Marxist/Communist idea: Let’s cap gas prices at $2.49 a gallon (Hinchey to outline proposals to lower gasoline prices). Sound good to you? Please think about this for a minute.

We are a democratic republic. Our country was founded as a nation that empowers its citizens with freedom. That includes freedom in the marketplace. We call it capitalism–let the free market control prices and let private citizens own business enterprises–the “capital” of capitalism. Marxism (or Communism), on the other hand, centrally controls prices and ownership of capital. The State sets prices and controls how much of a good or service is available. Russia tried it for about 80 years and you can see what happened to them. Big-time failure.

So what does the good little Commie Hinchey want to do? Set price controls on gasoline. Guess what will happen in pretty short order if we set price controls on gas: (1) The supply will decrease because oil companies will sell it to countries that will pay more for it; (2) Gas in America will be rationed because a decreased supply means not enough to meet demand; (3) The American economy will enter a recession, possibly a depression, because people will stop buying and stop traveling; and (4) Hinchey and people like Congresswoman Maxine Waters (the female version of Hinchey, watch this clip of her from last week) will immediately move to nationalize the oil companies–that is, have the State take them over and run them.

Your guess is as good as mine…is Hinchey really a blithering idiot? Or a crazy-like-a-fox Communist? Hard to say. I prefer to think he’s stupid and doesn’t know it.

Why are oil prices so high? Simple: The enviro nutjob libs have prevented us from drilling in this country for years. They’ve also stopped expansion of nuclear power plants. We haven’t built a nuke plant in over 30 years! In short–we have higher demand and less supply. The population in America has gone up, our oil production has gone down, and places like China and India are buying more oil today than they ever have in the past. More demand + less supply = higher prices. It’s simple economics. The solution? Start drilling for oil in ANWR and off-shore, and build more nuclear power plants–NOW. We need more supply and we need it fast.

What we don’t need are Marxist solutions from people like Maurice Hinchey and Maxine Waters.

Technorati Tags: Maurice Hinchey, Maxine Waters, Marxism, capitalism, Communism, oil prices, nuclear power

But…the Public Service Commission must approve it, and has not, as yet, done so. The NYRI power line is due to come online in 2011, if they can manage to ram it through. Construction is supposed to start sometime this year. So it’s no surprise to me that the Press & Sun-Bulletin has run yet another press release from NYRI: NYRI, veterans council partner to provide jobs. The tone and gist of the article in the P&SB is: WHEN this thing is built, NYRI will give out some jobs to disabled vets (never mind how a disabled vet is going to work on it!). The article should be about IF this thing is built. How nice of the P&SB to provide NYRI free publicity in its news pages. No doubt the NYRI is buying large ads too–remember my comments about the Chinese Wall at the P&SB?

My theory about NYRI may be a little off the mark…but I’ll stick to it nonetheless. You can read it here: The Fall of Indian Point Nuclear and Rise of NYRI.

Technorati Tags: NYRI, New York Regional Interconnect, New York Public Service Commission, eminent domain

• NYSEG Covers Up Alternative Bids in Favor of Spanish Company Takeover
• Sale of NYSEG to Spanish Company Iberdrola Hits Big Roadblock
• NYSEG Selling Out to Foreign Ownership

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) is doing their best to prevent the sale–kudos to them. But Iberdrola is not going away quietly. I saw this interesting advertisement online at the Press & Sun-Bulletin website, right at the top of the page (click the image to see full size):

The odd time or two I’ve purchased the print version of the P&SB, I believe I’ve also seen large full-page ads from Iberdrola there as well. In publishing there is something known as the “Chinese Wall” between ad sales and editorial. It means there is supposed to be an imaginary wall between the two and one (the sales department) should not influence the other (the editorial department). People in the publishing business know that’s not necessarily how it works in the real world.

I wonder when, if ever, we’ll see a negative story in the P&SB about the Iberdrola/Energy East deal, the way we see an endless parade of negative stories about Bush/Cheney? Does anyone seriously doubt there’s a left-leaning bias (and economic self-interest) in P&SB reporting?

Technorati Tags: Binghamton, Press & Sun-Bulletin, Iberdrola, NYSEG, Energy East, New York PSC