While MidAmerican makes billions, they want more of your money!
The Iowa Utilities Board has scheduled a series of public meetings to gather input on MidAmerican Energy’s plans to increase electric rates 4 percent this year to cover rising costs.
The Iowa Utilities Board will hold six meetings across the state from Feb. 23 to March 13 for customers to provide public comments on a proposed electric rate increase to be filed next week by MidAmerican Energy. At these meetings, customers will be able to provide comments and ask questions directly of representatives for the IUB, MEC, and the Office of Consumer Advocate, which represents consumers’ general interests in IUB proceedings.
The meetings include:
• February 23, at 5:30 p.m., Iowa Utilities Board, John Norris Hearing Room, 1375 E. Court Avenue, Des Moines.
• February 28 at 5:30 p.m., Modern Woodmen Park, Suites 10 and 11, 209 South Gaines Street, Davenport.
• March 1 at 5:30 p.m., Waterloo Center for the Arts, Petersen Town Hall, 225 Commercial Street, Waterloo.
• March 6 at 5:30 p.m., Briar Cliff University, Stark Student Center, Clare Room, 3303 Rebecca Street, Sioux City.
• March 8 at 5:30 p.m., Johnson County Fairgrounds, Montgomery Hall, 4261 Oak Crest Hill Road SE, Iowa City.
• March 13 at 5:30 p.m., Council Bluffs Public Library, Rooms A & B, 400 Willow Avenue, Council Bluffs.
The IUB’s decision on permanent rates in this case is anticipated by late December 2012. MEC serves about 637,700 electric customers in Iowa.
The company says the increase is necessary to recover rising environmental requirements and energy production cost.
Iowa law allows utilities to impose rate increases on a temporary basis until regulators make a final decision.
MidAmerican Energy is the state’s largest utility with 770,000 customers. It’s operating under a rate freeze that preserves rates until 2013.
The company, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Neb., hasn’t raised base electric rates in 16 years.
Hold on to your wallets!
This is just the beginning. MidAmerican is asking for a 4 percent rate increase now and another 2 percent in Jan. 2013. If the Iowa Senate approves the “Construction Work in Progress” (CWIP) nuclear bill in front of it, MidAmerican would be allowed to raise electric rates on Iowa consumers in advance to fund risky nuclear reactors that may never be built.
Nuclear rate hikes would be enormous
If the nuclear bill is approved, the Iowa Utilities Board estimates that electric rates will rise by 10 percent for every billion dollars spent by MidAmerican on new nuclear reactors. With new reactors priced at over $12 billion, electric rates could more than double in just a few years. Why should Iowans pay for raised rates when the reactors may not ever be built?
How much more profit does MidAmerican need?
MidAmerican made $1.24 billion in profit in 2010, including $279 million from its Iowa operations alone. Does MidAmerican really need to make even more money off the backs of Iowan ratepayers?
MidAmerican’s rate hikes burden the elderly and the poor
Electric rate increases disproportionally impact the people who can least afford them. People on fixed income, the elderly and the poor will be hit the hardest as they spend a larger percentage of their income on electricity.
Where was MidAmerican’s environmental concern for the past decade?
MidAmerican has been making massive profits for years, but now claim that environmental regulations are forcing it to raise rates. They should have been using some of their billions of dollars of profits to improve their electric generation and make it less harmful to public health and our environment. MidAmerican was happy to make profits while polluting, now they should be forced to use those profits to address they pollution they are making.
All kinds of Iowans oppose nuclear rate hikes
A Des Moines Register poll released on February 21 showed that 77 percent of Iowans oppose the nuclear bill that would allow MidAmerican to jack up the electric rates on Iowans in advance for the costs of planning and building nuclear reactors. It’s no surprise that groups as varied as business interests, environmentalists and the local AARP are opposed to this unwise plan.
We should learn from the Fukushima disaster
The nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan is approaching its first anniversary and shows us the real dangers posed by nuclear reactors. The MidAmerican rate increase and nuclear proposal is an insult to Iowa consumers and ignores the lessons we should take from the Fukushima tragedy.
Produced by Friends of the Earth