It’s fitting that Senate Republicans waited until after dark before they voted to curtail utility companies’ energy-efficiency programs and effectively raise Iowans’ electric and gas bills in the future. It was an exceptionally dim move.
The bill, Senate File 2311, allows utility consumers to opt out of programs that pay rebates when homeowners buy energy-efficient appliances, furnaces, water heaters and the like. It also caps the amount consumers can be charged for these programs and requires the fee be disclosed on their bills.
Customers, of course, pay for these popular rebate programs as part of their utility rates.
Sen. Michael Breitbach apparently doesn’t think Iowans are smart enough to figure out this isn’t free money. He called it a “hidden tax” on utility bills.
“These people don’t come out and give you this money for nothing,” said Breitbach, a Republican from Strawberry Point. “They’ve charged you for it. You’ve paid for it.”
Supporters also argue that low-income people who live in rental housing are paying into these programs without getting any benefit.
Hooey. Sen. Joe Bolkcom, an Iowa City Democrat, said he feared this would go down as “one of the dumbest bills this session.” That would be saying a lot, considering Senate Republicans have already passed a $1 billion tax cut without having a clue how they’ll pay for it.
Bolkcom called the bill “the Senate Republican utility rate increase.” He and other Senate Democrats pointed out that these successful conservation programs are keeping energy costs low for all Iowans. Energy customers have saved $2 billion to $3 billion since 1990 in avoided costs of new power plants, Bolkcom said. The net savings to customers since 2009 is about $400 million a year.
“Iowa has some of the lowest utility costs in the country and some of the lowest in the Midwest,” Bolkcom said. “And the reason is that since 1990, we have invested in saving energy and not building expensive new power plants. That’s unrefutable.”
He argued that making the energy-efficiency programs voluntary would be the death of them, making it only a matter of time before everybody has to chip in for the next new power plant. “New power plants cost more than saving energy. It’s that simple,” Bolkcom said.
Breitbach pooh-poohed the idea that consumers would forsake energy-efficient appliances if they stop getting rebates. “I don’t think that you can buy non-energy efficient appliances and I don’t know anybody who would,” Breitbach said.
Apparently, he didn’t ask members of his own caucus. Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, stood up and suggested he might be willing to hunt for a second-hand washing machine rather than buy a new, energy-efficient model that he thinks might be less durable. “I want to believe that consumers should at least have a choice,” he said.
“Wow,” Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, responded, musing that he must be living in an alternative universe to Chelgren and Senate Republicans.
Wow, indeed. I can almost wrap my head around Senate Republicans wanting to protect Iowans from a program that saves them $2 for every dollar they spend. It’s the same mentality that made GOP lawmakers refuse last year to bar children and drunks from shooting off dangerous fireworks. As they say, you can’t fix stupid.
More: Obradovich: Can’t fix stupid: The 2017 Legislature in three words
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What’s harder to fathom is why they are working to sabotage their own top priority of job creation in Iowa. Hogg read a letter to lawmakers from a consortium of Iowa businesses that reported that more than 20,000 jobs in the state depend on the state’s energy-efficiency programs.
It’s not just the renewable energy jobs that could be on the line. Businesses, some of whom located in Iowa because of its low energy costs and renewable portfolio, lined up to oppose the bill. Names like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple were among the opponents of the legislation.
Meanwhile, the major supporter behind this legislation appears to be Alliant Energy, a multi-billion-dollar company that operates as a regulated monopoly. Alliant saw its profits rise by 50 percent in the last quarter of 2017. The company attributed the jump in profits to its recent rate increase on customers in Iowa and Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Suffice to say Alliant isn’t hurting for money.
In fact, it seems very likely that all Senate Republicans accomplished by their late-night debate on this legislation was to increase the state’s electricity bill. But just in case, Iowans may want to hurry up and buy that new energy-saving water heater.