When the legislature passed Senate Bill 3 (SB 3), the renewable energy and energy efficiency bill, it provided special treatment to big businesses that use large amounts of electricity.
The costs of energy efficiency programs would not be imposed on these big electricity users if they didn’t want to participate in these programs. All they had to do was show they had made some type of energy efficient investment at some point in the past.
Energy efficiency programs can be wide-ranging, but generally involve charging electricity customers a hidden electricity tax. The tax then can be used by utilities to provide financial incentives to electricity customers to buy energy efficient goods and services (e.g. energy efficient washer/dryer, residential energy audit).
The big businesses didn’t want to pay these high costs for these programs for the same reasons that individuals, families and small businesses wouldn’t want to–there’s no benefit and all costs. People make decisions to improve energy efficiency whenever feasible and don’t need to be taxed to do the “right thing.”
However, the legislature, trying to provide special treatment to these big businesses (and to get SB 3 passed), only provided an exemption from these energy efficiency programs to big businesses.
Therefore, it came as a surprise when the Utilities Commission tried to be creative with the statute and held that these clear exceptions for big electricity users didn’t apply in many circumstances. I discussed this issue earlier.
In a comment I wrote to the Commission, I argued that the Commission should change its original order and properly interpret SB 3. Specifically, they should rule that there’s an exception that allows big electricity users to opt-out of these energy efficiency programs. The focus of my argument dealt with how the Commission was “reading out” a statutory provision.
While I don’t like the fact that there’s a special exception for big businesses, the Commission also shouldn’t make up law to
fix the poor policy decisions of the legislature. The
public needs to know that the legislature wanted families and small
businesses to pay more for energy than the Wal-Marts and big businesses
of the state. In addition, the legislature needs to revisit the energy efficiency
provisions of the law.
Just recently, the Commission reversed its earlier decision and, in this new order, has held that big electricity users can opt-out of these energy efficiency programs.
