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Remember when your mom used to tell you to turn off the lights when you left a room to save money on the electric bill because money didn’t grow on trees?
Well, forget it.
Remember when people who bought cars that got low gas mileage not only were considered pretty smart, but nicer people than jerks driving humongous, gas-guzzling SUVs that pump huge clouds of poisonous, ozone-destroying carbon dioxide into the environment?
Well, to hell with your mom and anyone else in Wisconsin who tries to do the right thing to reduce energy costs and protect the environment.
We know there’s a nutty fringe within the Republican Party who claim warnings about global warming increasing droughts, hurricanes and other life-threatening disasters are part of a massive hoax by a worldwide conspiracy of liberal scientists.
But you may not realize with Republican climate-change deniers in total control of Wisconsin’s government that some ugly changes are being made around here.
The state already has begun instituting policies and proposing changes to discourage and even prevent good people from lowering their energy costs by using cleaner energy to protect the environment.
As a result, most state residents are about to see enormous boosts in their energy bills. Next on the agenda, the Legislature will consider a proposal to punish people trying to cut gasoline usage and pollution by purchasing low-mileage cars, particularly hybrids and electrics.
Republicans are specifically targeting people who want to lower energy costs and protect the planet—previously known as good citizens making intelligent choices. They consider such folks deadbeats trying to avoid paying their “fair share” to utilities and oil companies.
This shift to punish state residents for using less energy began literally days after Republican Gov. Scott Walker was re-elected in November.
That’s when Walker’s appointees to the state Public Service Commission (PSC) began issuing decisions in three major rate cases that made a radical change in how consumers pay for the cost of power in Wisconsin. Rates are no longer based primarily on usage.
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The agency regulating power companies is still called the Public Service Commission from the days when Wisconsin had progressive governors like “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, who believed state regulatory agencies should serve the public. The name no longer applies.
In separate cases involving power companies in Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay, Walker’s PSC allowed the utilities to spread the primary cost of energy to all their customers in fixed-rate charges while actually reducing usage rates for large energy users.
The result for We Energies in Milwaukee starting this month will be a 75% increase from $9 to $16 a month in the fixed-rate charge for residential customers and small businesses while—surprise, surprise—large businesses that consume far more electricity will see their electric bills go down.
PSC Chairman Phil Montgomery says it’s more “fair” to stick residential users who use the least electricity with the largest rate increases while cutting costs for large businesses, who just happened to contribute large sums to Walker’s re-election. Because, you know, everybody gets the same access to the grid no matter how much energy they use.
Montgomery didn’t mention one of the real purposes, which was to discourage customers from installing solar panels to reduce their energy costs. The huge residential rate boost would wipe out much of the savings intelligent folks realize by moving toward cleaner, more sustainable solar power.
Solar companies in Wisconsin already have begun laying off employees and threatening lawsuits.
The Walker administration previously shut down new wind farms in the state. Now it’s trying to kill solar power as well. For their next trick, they’ll try to discourage people from buying cars that get better gas mileage.
Remember cash for clunkers and raising automobile mileage requirements? Those were successful Obama administration programs that got old, polluting junkers off the roads and required car manufacturers to build safer cars that get better gas mileage.
Having failed to stop both programs from reducing carbon pollution, Republicans now want to punish drivers buying new cars that use less gasoline, especially those dreaded hybrid and electric cars driven by latte-drinking liberals.
To fund a massive $751 million budget hike for the Department of Transportation, Walker and Republicans object to raising Wisconsin’s outdated gas tax. They wouldn’t want to cut into the huge profits of oil companies.
They are much more favorable toward Transportation Department proposals to add fees to new car purchases, boosting the cost of a $32,000 car by $800. As a gratuitous personal swipe, they are considering another annual fee of $50 for anyone who drives a hybrid or electric vehicle.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Wisconsin, like 37 other states, actually rewarded, instead of punished, good citizens for doing the right thing to benefit the entire world by personally helping to clean up the air, reduce greenhouse gases and cut dependence on oil?
