John Hood was featured this week in a Daily Advance story about
the
request by Piedmont Natural Gas to raise customer rates and merge the
Eastern North Carolina Natural Gas project into its customer base. The
result would be to spread the cost of the pipeline over 960,000
customers. “The taxpayers of North Carolina paid for the investment,”
said Hood. “Now a good portion of ratepayers are going to have to pay
again to bail them out.” This boondoggle began in 1998 when voters
approved $200 million in bonds to put natural gas lines in 22
northeastern counties that didn’t have the service. Demand was very low
and this type of infrastructure typically isn’t built until new
customers can pay for it. Read the CJ Exclusive series here.