South Bend Tribune article on NIPSCO rate increases 10/9/2015
Three things that jumped out at me:
1. They want to be reimbursed from public funds of the State of Indiana, even though they are a public utility, for Hoosiers decreasing their use of the dirty energy NIPSCO provides.
Wow, as I dig in, the above effort isn't anything new for NIPSCO.. they are a net beneficiary of the US treasury.. which means they get more money from the government than they pay in taxes.. can you believe that!?
This was the case in according to the web page Sourcewatch, and they pointed out that NI-Source, NIPSCO's parent company, was 9th in the country between 2008 and 2010 for the amount the government paid it over what it paid in taxes, a total of $227,000,000. NI get's more corporate handouts than it pays in taxes.. in other words, every Hooiser and every american pays Ni-source and therefore NIPSCO from it's tax money.
So let's dig into this... who do they give campaign contributions to to make this happen. Sourcewatch mentions Rep. John Boehner, the recently deposed Speaker of the House, and a congressman from Ohio where NI-Source has it's headquarters.
My first search in the state of Indiana turns up only $850 worth of contributions since 2000 to only 2 state candidates from NI-Source..
Link to Indiana Election Commission search for NI-Source Donations
now let's try NIPSCO by it's self:
Link to Indiana Election Commission Search for NIPSCO donations
again.. only about $8000 in 8 seperate donations.. not nearly the 1.8 million that NI-Source supposedly spent in Lobbying in 2008-2010 or anything close to it.. so where is it to get handouts like 72 million for merely doing it's legal and environmental duty to decrease demand for dirty electricity?
two more places to look, federal donations, and the all powerful pac's. Don't forget, corporations are people as per the supreme court, and have a right to give as much as they want to Political Action Committees:
now we are getting someplace
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000410
NI-Source averages about a half million dollars a year in payments to two DC lobbyists, .. do they work at the state level as well?
This link shows that in addition to paying for 2 Lobbyists in our nations capitol, Alex Oheler and Rebecca Sczudlo,
they have a PAC NI-SOURCE INC. PAC which they use to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to federal candidates, which one would assume are mostly incumbent congressmen who have to beg for about a million dollars each year to get re-elected.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00051979
Wow. what a long list.. and they give to people as far away as Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski for instance, most likely because they are on the Energy Committee of the House and Senate.
There also are payments to State and Local Candidates to the sum of over 100k, but it's hard to find them here.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenditures.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00051979
So to summarize..
NIPSCO's parent NI-Source get's more corporate welfare than it pays in taxes!
It gives to congressmen and senators in states thousands of miles from Indiana or any of their other operations just to ensure goodies like this, while demanding a higher rate and reimbursement for lost revenue that is meant to clean up the environment and keep them from having to build more plants at a loss!
pretty dreamy isn't it! Imagine if you could run a business like that.. have the government pay you on top of your clients.. you get reimbursed for lost revenue for programs you participate in to save money in the first place (it's a win win!) and you get to raise your rates on top of that, all to make people pay for your inability as a business to adapt past 100 year old technology!
All the mercury in coal dust must be getting to them, or to us to put up with this.
2. They say they haven't raised rates since 2011, which they now want to raise 11.5% but they have raised fees other than the supposed rate for kilowatt use (which is almost impossible to discern on most people's bills, so what's the difference?) consistently over that time period.
3. They are raising rates when inflation has been flat, Hoosier income has also been flat, and the price of coal is plummeting due to the Obama Administrations pressure on the industry in the face of it being the largest single point polluter on the planet!
Powder river basin coal is the one outlier, but I doubt NIPSCO ships from there since it is in NE Wyoming, a long ways further away than The Appalachian sources, but it's dropping as well!
here is the US inflation rate.. it's my bet that Indiana's was LOWER!
oh, and don't forget hoosier income, which is #38 in the nation:
Does this all look wrong to you?!
We aren't even talking about the environment yet..
supposedly there are public meetings to discuss these rate hikes, and NIPSCO will argue that it's improving infrastructure, giving to charities (not nearly as much as it gives to political campaigns, although it get's a lot more local press) and maybe even dabbling in green energy, but man, despite all that.. there is something deeply wrong here.
I check this blog every few months and check the news.. and yup.. NIPSCO still sucks.. from my meter box, lousey service, and almost intentionally confusing bill, to their plain audacity and the environmental destruction they wreak..
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