Jim Powell for Georgia PSC
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Georgians heading to the polls on December 2nd should be sure to vote in the race for Georgia Public Service Commission. Since we lost David Burgess in 2006, there have been no progressive or pro-consumer voices on the PSC, save for Angela Spier, a Republican who chose not to run for reelection this year. Her seat is sought by Jim Powell, a career U.S. Department of Energy executive and Democrat, and Bubba McDonald, a former commissioner who paid far too little attention to consumer rights during his tenure. Angela Spier crossed party lines to endorse Powell because of his commitment to fight for both consumers and for renewable energy sources. “I think it’s time to move Georgia out of the dark ages and into the 21st century,” Powell recently told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “We need to have a long-term plan, take a hard look at how we generate electricity 20 to 30 years out.” For an energy regulator in a coal-hungry southern state, you can’t get more progressive than that. Vote Jim Powell on December 2nd!
Disconnected By Deregulation
Posted by Sonja Ebron
No wonder it’s gotten more difficult to keep your lights on in deregulated areas. Residential natural gas customers in Georgia, electric customers in Texas, power and natural gas customers in New York and elsewhere have all paid much more for utilities after deregulation than before. We can now add Maryland to this sorry list.
According to The Capital, the local paper in Annapolis, Anne Arundel county officials are dealing with “a staggering increase” in the number of people needing help with electric bills. Supplier competition began two years ago in the territory of the former monopoly, Baltimore Gas & Electric, forcing household electric bills to jump 72 percent. The governor negotiated a one-time $170 credit with BGE’s parent company, Constellation Energy, which is slated to appear on September bills. Nevertheless, BGE has disconnected 12,000 people through the first five months of 2008, with 5,000 disconnections just in May (before it started getting hot in Baltimore). Despite the upcoming rebate, the company expects to disconnect 30,000 ratepayers this year, an increase of 30 percent over last year.
Why Blacks Pay More For Utilities
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Blacks do pay more for utilities, but not because we get different rates or a special energy tax. It’s because, since the 1980s, we use more. A 1975 Ford Foundation study (The American Energy Consumer) found that Blacks spent less on energy than others, mostly because of our limited housing choices. At that time, the typical Black home had no running hot water, few windows and doors, natural gas heat (gas was a lot cheaper then), and few appliances.
Then as now, most of us paid rent each month instead of a mortgage. But now, even renters are living large. We have all the amenities — washers and dryers, frost-free fridges, central air and heat, and all the electronics we can stand. But don’t ask us about the level of insulation in the walls or attic, the amount of weatherstripping or caulk on our doors and windows, or the number of Energy Stars on our appliances.
People Make blackEnergy Go Round
Posted by Sonja Ebron
I like to take all the credit for blackEnergy’s success, but the truth is there is a fantastic staff doing the company’s work. Dave Benfield, our VP for sales and marketing, is retired from the same position at one of Georgia’s natural gas suppliers. Besides mentoring me (read: keeping my head on straight most days), he uses a thick Rolodex to introduce me to lots of helpful contacts. He’s also made it much easier than we thought to transition from exclusive relationships with utility suppliers to a tenable independent status. Gwen Sheppard, an old and dear college friend, is a retired military officer and software genius. As director of operations, she keeps the trains running on time and just gets the job done right every day. Crystal Grant (pictured below discussing energy conservation with an Atlanta resident) is a recent graduate of Spelman’s innovative environmental science program. As our special projects coordinator, she has a hand in everything from government contracting to consumer education initiatives.
Crystal also supervises our summer intern, Sarah Jones, a political science and environmental science major at Spelman. Perhaps because they’re young and inexperienced, Crystal and Sarah add the energy and out-of-the-box thinking the rest of us old-timers sometimes lack. Along with our vendors and suppliers, I think we make a great team. So while I can’t take credit for their work, at least I can take credit for hiring them.
