Where the Money Meets the Power
by: Rep. Brady Wiseman
House Approves Monopoly Status for Northwestern Energy
Consensus seems to have been reached among legislators that it’s time to do something about the utility deregulation mess that has seen our power rates soar over the past decade.
That ’something’ is giving Northwestern Energy status as a monopoly utility, thus reversing most of the deregulation laws from 1997 and 1999. The major structural flaw in the system is that the supplier of power for Northwestern’s service area has an unfair advantage in market power, and that advantage can’t be adjusted.
That supplier of course is Pennsylvania Power and Light, which wound up owning the dams and the lion’s share of Colstrip. As of next summer, the price they charge us for electricity, through our Northwestern bills, will have more than doubled since 1999. PPL is the major opponent of the re-regulation effort.
The House handily passed HB25, which would allow Northwestern Energy to once again own electric generators and operate them as a monopoly. This activity would all be regulated by the Public Service Commission, which would set rates for the entire system from the generating plant to your house.
The supreme irony of the decade-long story of deregulation in Montana is that in order to get more competition into our electricity markets, we have to have more regulation. (more…)
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Challenging the Real ID Act
by: Rep. Brady Wiseman
This morning I will be having a hearing on my House Bill 287, which says that Montana will refuse to implement the federal Real ID Act. That is the new law that requires us to participate in a national ID scheme.
This law is going cause us a huge amount of red tape, it’s going to cost us millions, and it is a real threat to our privacy. And security experts say that it won’t do a bit to protect us from terrorism.
The Real ID act was tacked on to a military appropriations bill last year at the last minute, and has all the signs of being another boondoggle, but with consequences. They want to make us use an approved driver’s license to board an airliner, open a bank account, or take care of business down at the federal building.
Montanans have long cast a squinty eye at efforts by Washington, or Helena for that matter, to collect too much data about citizens. We deserve to have a real debate about whether we want to have a national ID card, and if we really need one.
My challenge to my fellow legislators is for us to stand up for our privacy and our liberty, and tell Congress we won’t play along with this. My bill is one of many in a number of states saying the same thing. Although there is legislation in the new Congress to do something about it, I believe that we need to hold up both hands and say “whoa!”. Congress needs to go back to the drawing board.
Real ID? We don’t want it, we don’t need it, and we can’t afford it. Let’s stick with the system we have.
Here is the text of the current Real ID statute.
Here is a study of Real ID by the non-partisan National Association of State Legislators.
Listen to the hearing in House Judiciary this morning at 8:00.
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