If passed, legislation will impact your bill for years to come

The U.S. Congress, through the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is about to create the largest cost increase in Jackson EMC’s history.  Through legislation that sponsors Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) cloak in environmental improvement and energy independence, your monthly electric bill will increase between 30-50 percent, adding $50 or more a month to the electric rates you already pay. The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the bill June 24, and it's now going to the Senate for debate.

 How is that possible?  This bill will place serious restrictions on your cooperative, charge stiff penalties when we cannot meet the goals it sets, and then make us collect penalties that are essentially taxes which are returned to the Federal government.
 
An example is the bill’s provision for cap-and-trade – a system that would supposedly severely limit carbon emissions and establishes an auction system to trade carbon credits to in essence make up for not meeting those limits.   Each year, as carbon limits increase, power companies would be forced to buy more credits in order to continue producing electricity.  The effect of this provision would be to take the electricity produced from fossil fuels for which you have been paying a reasonable price and drive the cost up dramatically through what really amounts to a tax.   The Congressional Budget Office estimates that cap-and-trade legislation will raise the cost of living of an average household by $1,600 a year.

Then there is the bill’s renewable energy provision, which will require power companies to produce at least  six percent of their power from renewable resources, such as biomass, solar, wind, low impact hydropower  or  geothermal by 2012 and  20 percent by 2025.  Your cooperative supports the use of renewable energy and made that clear in its participation as a founding member of Green Power EMC.  And though Green Power EMC has entertained a significant number of new renewable energy generation proposals, and has implemented as many feasible new projects as possible, such as a new woody waste generating plant at Rabun Gap, after six years we still can only generate less than one percent of our electricity from renewable resources. 

Given that Georgia isn’t blessed with a great many renewable energy resources and that renewable technology is either very expensive (solar) or located far from where we need it (wind), I think it’s a pretty far stretch to believe we’ll be able to meet that requirement.  And when we don’t, this new legislation will penalize us to the tune of two and a half cents per kilowatt hour our members use above 4 billion kWh – another tax.  How much will that be?  Jackson EMC members used nearly five billion kWh in the last 12 months, so under this provision your cooperative would have been hit with more than $25 million in penalties, which would have gone directly to your power bill.  And, by 2025 we’re forecasting that our members will use nearly 10 billion kWh.

There are better solutions to the energy challenges our country faces.  It is irresponsible to suggest that you be burdened with such a huge increase in the cost of power.  Through our government relations representatives at Georgia EMC, our statewide organization, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Washington, D.C., we’re working to represent your interests.  I encourage you to add your voice to ours and contact your elected officials, below.  Let them know that reliable and reasonably priced electricity should be your right.