Ameren bill

It pleased me to participate in a demonstration this week opposing the proposed rate hike by Ameren. AARP was sponsor. I will post some more info on the bill and the AARP position.

This is the most recient developments:

Senate heats up over utilities bill
By Terry Ganey
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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JEFFERSON CITY — Charges and counter-charges flew on the Senate floor Tuesday evening as lawmakers debated whether AmerenUE could charge customers for a nuclear-powered generating plant before it produces power.
Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, and Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, questioned each other’s motives on the most controversial bill of this session. Schaefer suggested Crowell was representing Noranda Aluminum, AmerenUE’s largest electric customer, in opposing the bill that allows Ameren to collect rates on its plant while it’s under construction.
“Is Noranda paying you?” Schaefer asked Crowell at one point.
“What’s Ameren paying you?” Crowell replied.
“I have not taken a dime from Ameren and I never will,” Schaefer responded.
The exchange took place about four hours into the debate over legislation that Schaefer wrote in a bid to repeal a prohibition that voters approved in a statewide referendum in 1976. Voters banned any utility from charging customers for a power plant’s construction until that plant was producing power.
AmerenUE filed a bill this session that repeals the prohibition and sets up a procedure in which the Public Service Commission would allow utilities to charge customers for construction work in progress. Schaefer said his bill included customer protections that were not part of the legislation that the St. Louis-based utility introduced earlier this year.
Ameren officers have said the existing prohibition places too great a financial obstacle in the path of the utility’s plans to build a second nuclear-powered generating facility in Callaway County. More than 20 amendments were prepared for attachment to the bill, a signal that debate on the measure could go late into the night.
The Senate turned back 22-9 an attempt by Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, to submit the repeal to a vote of the people in a statewide election in November.
Reach Terry Ganey at 573-815-1708 or e-mail tganey@columbiatribune.com