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Free cash for Xcel Energy

They’re at it again! A bunch of Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature want to give Xcel Energy a bag of free cash.

There’s nothing that some Minnesota Legislators like more than to transfer wealth from ordinary working and retired people to Minnesota’s wealthiest and largest corporations. Back in the days of Ronald “The Gipper” Reagan they created a smoke screen by calling it trickle down economics. The idea was that we’d give a lot of tax money to rich people and they’d use most of it to get richer and some of it to us in the form of jobs.

Now we don’t believe that anymore. We don’t believe that anymore because, since the Gipper was President, CEO pay in big corporations has gone up by more than 800%. That means if a CEO was earning $200,000 in 1981 he’s now earning $1,600,000. While taxpayers’ dollars were gushing up to CEOs and corporate big wigs, some did dribble back down. While CEO pay went up 800% plus some, the average working Jane and Joe had an 11.2% increase in wages. So, if you were earning $23,000 in 1981, Reagan’s first year in office, you are now earning around $26,000.

Sounds like you and I got trickled on, all right.

Ben Fowkes, CEO of Xcel Energy, earned $8,881,703.00 last year. That’s just shy of nine million a year. A customer service representative for Ben’s electric utility earned just shy of $12.00 an hour.

Most Republicans oppose paying that customer service rep a minimum wage of $15.00 per hour. Bad for business, they mumble. 

But they do support a piece of legislation that will surely give Old Ben a pay bump.

Here’s the deal regarding a bill called SF 3504, or a carbon reduction facility designation for certain nuclear energy electric generating facilities.
Prairie Island generating plant
Thanks to Wikipedia
Xcel owns a nuclear power plant on Prairie Island in the Mississippi near Red Wing. They own another one upriver near Monticello. Normally they have to get approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to do repair projects on these plants. That’s because Xcel, or any other utility with a monopoly, can charge their customers for the repairs plus a reasonable profit. Xcel gets to make a reasonable profit on repairs if the repairs are managed well.

The last time Xcel did a big repair job on their nukes the project had a $400 million overrun. The PUC told Xcel that they couldn’t charge their customers and make a profit on the overruns. The agency called the overrun imprudent management.

Now you can imagine nine-million-dollar Ben was stung by the claim that he had imprudently managed the company he was supposed to be running. He wanted a profit and a fat bonus for his repair job overrun. So, he called in the fattest cats in the lobbying business and they made a plan.

Xcel currently is planning a $1.4 billion repair project at their two nuclear power plants. And Big Bucks Ben and the Fat Cats have put their plan into action. It’s their fake carbon reduction facility designation legislation. 

This bill will allow Xcel to go arount the PUC and charge their customers for whatever size of overrun that the repair project has.  If you can make a profit on overruns, don’t you think you’d be tempted to go over the project budget? I mean, just a teensy bit? Like a few hundred million? Nobody will even notice now that you don’t have to talk to those nasty PUC regulators.

My personal opinion is that the rich shouldn’t get richer by charging us more for electricity. But I understand that Senator Gazelka believes that CEO Ben Fowkes is rich because he’s been blessed by God. I understand that Sen. Gazelka believes his ministry is to shower more riches on the blessed rich. If you don’t believe me read his book Market Place Ministers. So, I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond to my inquiry about SF 3504.

But I was disappointed in Representative Kresha’s silence. Here’s what I wrote to him:

“Dear Ron.

Last year I suggested to you that the Republicans had an agenda to weaken the Public Utilities Commission. You politely disagreed with me.

I’m afraid they are back at it again with HF 3708. We want you to know that we strongly opposed to HF 3708/ SF3504. We do not believe that Minnesotans should be allowing Xcel to determine the amount of taxpayer money that they receive, particularly because they are attempting to bypass the Public Utilities Commission. We do not want money flowing unchecked into the hands of a company that has had a history of cost overruns and “imprudent management” according to the Public Utilities Commission, the Department of Commerce, and the Attorney General. We know your job as Whip is to move these bills along. But please - do not support this bill.”

I didn’t hear back so I wrote Rep. Poston a similar note and I heard back. Here’s what he said.

“Good Morning Tim. Thank you for your note! I will review the bill today! Have a Great week!!!”


Boy, I sure hope we can count on Rep. Poston to protect us from more trickle down from Big Bucks Ben and his friends.

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