Regulation of the Unregulated.
Taxation without Representation leads to the start of a new nation. Who knows what regulation of the unregulated will unleash?
Utilities are monopolies. As such, they have no competition for the delivery of electricity or natural gas. The way their costs are established is by oversight by government regulatory agency (not competition). The agency determines if expenditures are spent for useful purposes and if they are, they get to recover the cost PLUS a profit of around 10%.
In Illinois, the regulatory agency is called the Illinois Commerce Commission or ICC; the ICC’s charter requires them to be
“…safe and least-cost public utility services, while promoting the development of an
effectively competitive energy supplier market.” (emphasis added)
In the 1980’s, utilities sold off the majority of their power plants to create competition amongst power generators and a wholesale power market. The ICC recognized that the monopoly utility was no longer necessary to buy and markup the electricity for their customers. Customers could buy it directly. The result: 75% of Illinois residents purchase their energy from an energy supplier and the result is $37 billion in savings.
A monopoly takes NO RISKS and passes through all their costs to customers. Regulators are only necessary when competition doesn’t exist or public interest is at risk.
The state legislators want to tax energy marketers to pay for the ICC regulatory enforcement. Enforcement over the utility. Taxing NON-MONOPOLY companies that compete against each other every day and against the utility which takes no risks.The ICC should reject this action as against their charter and require legislators or the utilities to pay for the cost of oversight of regulated companies. Energy marketers shoulder the risk and costs to provide electricity to customers through the regulated utility. Taxing them will NOT promote competitive energy supply.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Realgy owns and operates 6 solar plants in Illinois and is looking to invest in additional locations.
Additional Information:
http://www.energychoicematters.com/stories/20180221a.html