Power Companies Demand Kentucky's Poor Subsidize Them

This is the same lie the power companies have been telling for a hundred years now. The slightest attempt to hold them accountable and force them to actually provide power to customers at a reasonable rate while avoiding the worst pollution and they go running to their bought-and-paid-for legislators, crying and whining and demanding special favors.

These fuckers are making billions in profits - they can afford to eat the cost of cleaning up their planet-killing emissions act.

From the Herald:

Officials of the state’s utility companies told lawmakers Thursday that all Kentucky customers can expect average rate increases of 20 percent over the next five years.

John Voyles Jr., a vice president of Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, told a legislative committee that a host of new Environmental Protection Agency regulations will mean upgrades and changes to the state’s coal-fired power plants, resulting in increased costs to the customer.

Voyles said that power companies are looking at an “unprecedented number of proposed regulations” in the next four years that will require changes to comply with pollution standards.

The two companies have filed with the Public Service Commission, which sets utility rates, for an environmental surcharge. That would allow the utilities to pass along the costs for the changes needed to comply with the regulations.

But not every Kentucky legislator lives out of the power companies' pockets.

But Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, questioned why the statutes allow the companies to recover both capital and operating costs from customers for changes made to comply with regulations. That means they can still make a profit and pass all of the costs on to the customers.

“That doesn’t sit right with me,” Jones said.

In the past several years, Jones and other Eastern Kentucky legislators have questioned why power rates have skyrocketed while power companies continue to make healthy profits.