Raleigh, NC. Today, Representatives sent a letter to the consumer advocacy arm of the Utilities Commission, Public Staff, urging stronger defense of conservation and residents’ rights. The letter, focusing on natural gas rate pricing, arrives on the eve of the natural gas rate hearing for PSNC.
On May 14, the Utilities Commission will consider PSNC’s proposal to end a controversial natural gas rate structure, temporarily. PSNC is one of two natural gas providers that require residents to consume a quota of natural gas in the summer, or else face higher rates in the winter. Piedmont Natural Gas is the other.
“PSNC and Piedmont Natural Gas’s rate structures . . . reward energy inefficiency by affording a ‘value rate’ to citizens who consume more energy,” states the letter, signed by 18 Democratic and Republican Representatives.
“It is like charging teachers more per gallon of gasoline in the winter for not driving to work in the summer,” says Shana Becker, Advocate at NCPIRG. “Not only is it bad public policy, it is unfair.” NCPIRG, which is a non-profit non-partisan watchdog group, organized the letter to Public Staff, and collected 535 residential petitions from across the state.
The controversy over natural gas rate structures erupted in November 2006. The Commission permitted PSNC to impose a 9.78% surcharge per therm of natural gas on residents who failed to use 24 therms the previous summer. Public Staff had stipulated to the rate structure. The same rate structure already had been approved, with little note, for Piedmont Natural Gas.
“By agreeing to the rate structure, Public Staff had to value other interests more than conservation and consumer rights.” states Becker. “Fighting for smart energy policies and rate fairness for residents must be top priority.”
On May 14, the Utilities Commission will hear from PSNC and Public Staff regarding PSNC’s proposal. PSNC has requested to afford all residents the lower “value rate,” and to seek, at a later proceeding, compensation with interest for doing so. PSNC did not offer to refund the surcharges that they collected from residents last winter who used less.
“The current rate structures of PSNC and Piedmont Natural Gas penalize efficient and thrifty residents, . . . and encourage extra energy consumption,” state the Representatives in the letter.
“Such a rate structure makes no environmental or economic sense.”
