MAINE GOVERNMENT LESSON LEARNED - or How Patience can SOMETIMES change small power grabs by corporations

The following is Part 1 of a series of postings which will take you, the reader, through the process of a case filed before the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) as personally experienced by this writer over the past seven months. I will state it is the first, but probably not the last, such experience I have had with such an entity of Maine state government. Consider this my offering in the challenges and opportunities of a United States citizen and Maine resident and taxpayer.

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For those of you who have been following the travails of this case and writer since Saturday, January 1, 2011, when I first raised a hand in protest to the machinations of Bangor Hydro Electric Company (BHE), and through the 10 subsequent posting, I can now tell you - in synopsized form - of how that case evolved and has been concluded. At least for the time being. Since BHE files for residential rate increases at least every three years based on their claims of Stranded Costs, for which that company believes we, the residential ratepayer should be fiscally responsible, we can expect to go through it again beginning in December 2013.

NOTE: If you are interested in reading the previous postings, you can click on "Older Posts" and screen down to the following dates: Sunday, 5/22; Monday, 4/4; Thursday, 3/17; Sunday, 3/13; Thursday, 3/10; Wednesday, 3/9; Monday, 3/7; Sunday, 2/13; Monday, 1/24; Thursday, 1/13; Wednesday, 1/12 and the initial posting Saturday, 1/1 when it all began (for me).

A Bit of Background
The Commissioners of the MPUC are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Maine Legislature for, I believe, three-year terms. The latest appointment was Mr. Welch, Chairman. He is reported to have been a Commissioner (under a different governor) at the time BHE was directed by the Maine Legislature to sell off its electricity-generating resources. For that sale, BHE is reported to have received $750,000,000. BHE is currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of EMERA, a Canadian Corporation. BHE is now a transmission and distribution (only) utility.

The MPUC, with offices in Hollowell, ME, employs a staff of individuals who serve in a variety of capacities. When a case first begins, the parties to the individual case (BHE v. others) work through the direction and management of a Hearing Examiner and his/her staff. Months will pass while the parties do (or don't) communicate their positions and negotiations through this Hearing Examiner before the case will ever be reviewed, heard and ruled on by the three Commissioners. Patience and tenacity are essential for anyone who really wants to see an acceptable resolution to even the smallest issue. A long-life is required if one wants to see bigger issues addressed.

Stranded Costs are defined as debts - both long-term and, apparently, the the mind of BHE management, those incurred related to management decisions. It is a big and broad umbrella in the mind of BHE management.

Over-riding ratepayer issues regarding BHE's requests for residential rate increases for Stranded Costs are (1) when these debts occurred (since the debts should have been a result of the re-organization of BHE following the sale of its electricity-generating resources and subsequently becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of EMERA), (2)why the proceeds of the sale (the $750,000,000.) were not required to be used/were not used to pay off any remaining debts - or conversely, why EMERA was not required to assume them, and (3) just how long Maine residential ratepayers (that is what we are called - ratepayers) are expected to be increasingly charged to pay off these debts.

This writer became involved only because of a much smaller - but, to me, significant - issue: The transparency of BHE's intent to comply with Maine law requiring notification to its ratepayers that it was filing with the MPUC for a rate increase that would only be applied to residential ratepayers. Leave even the smallest crack in a wall and a cockroach will find a way to crawl through.

You see, BHE "requested that the Commission authorize an increase to its stranded cost rates and approve a three-year levelized revenue requirement of $19.751 million per year for the period of March 1, 2011 through February 28, 2014. (As stated in the MPUC final ORDER, dated June 10, 2011)

Their legally required written notification to the ratepayers of this request did not even have BHE's name on the outside of the bulk-mailed, tri-folded, single sheet which contained only the recipient's name and mailing address.

I say "sometime" because no where on the document (on the address side or the page-long statement of intent inside) was there a mailing date.This document was mailed sometime in December - I received mine December 30, 2010.

Who knows where it was mailed. The bulk-mail stamp was issued out of Cedar Rapids, IA.

And THAT was my issue. I believed the notification had the appearance of end-of-the-year Junk Mail. Junk mail that is automatically through in the trash unopened.

Based on the content of their application, one might wonder if there was an INTENT to have as few ratepayers become aware of their request as possible. Apparently very few ratepayers were aware - or, if aware, thought they could do anything to stop or appeal such an increase.

Neither of those statements applied to yours truly. I raised my hand and wrote a letter with copies of both sides of the notification. By the time this series is finished, it is my hope that vast numbers of BHE ratepayers will do the same come December 2013, because corporate greed and underhanded ways to undercut ratepayers, voters, citizens - people - needs to be stood up against. We, the American people, need to become our own corporation.