King George wants to soak the serfs with a increase in the price of electricity produced by federal power suppliers. There are four such entities throughout the country, but only the citizens of one seem to be concerned about what King George's edict
will mean to them:
A White House proposal to raise power rates for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) could cost between 21,000 and 32,000 jobs in Washington by the end of the decade, according to a report released Saturday.
More below the cut
The proposed price increase would, in some ways, mimic the effects of skyrocketing prices witnessed during the West Coast energy crisis of 2000 and 2001, warned Robert McCullough, a Portland-based energy consultant who prepared the report. McCullough works for a number of private companies and utilities that buy power from the BPA.
The crisis drove aluminum smelters to shut down and created havoc with the budgets of local utilities, driving up the bills of ratepayers. With many of the aluminum factories now gone, the brunt of the proposed price increases would be felt by other electricity-intensive industries such as chemical, steel and paper manufacturing, McCullough said. Oregon also would lose between 20,000 and 30,000 jobs, according to McCullough.
Bushco's response?
"I believe any firm number at this time is premature," said Joe Davis, a spokesman with the Department of Energy, which controls the BPA.
Davis said the impact of any rate increase would be softened because charges would be raised over several years, and the increases wouldn't affect prices set in long-term contracts held by major buyers of BPA power. The Bush proposal, spelled out in the president's budget released earlier this month, would raise BPA prices 20 percent a year over three years.
"We do see the proposal as being very minimal with respect to rate increases over a number of years," he said.
A 60% rate increase in three years? Minimal? Heartless bastards.
So we're looking at losing 60K jobs in Washington and Oregon alone. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have vowed to fight this proposal. Where's the outrage from the rest of the country? I see that shaky Pete Domenici(R), NM, is voicing opposition to the royal decree, but what about the elected representatives of the other 80 million people who will be impacted by this move? Where is their opposition?