Saturday, March 31, 2007

What The Hell Happened In Atmos Energy Case ?



When are Texans going to get tired of being screwed by the Republicans in our state government? This time it's the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) doing the screwing.

Not long ago, the TRC's own hearing examiners found that Atmos Energy was trying to pass on expenses such as $800-900 hotel rooms, limo rides, cases of expensive wine and high-dollar meals at resturants, to their customers by using a fee tacked on to their gas bills. The fee was supposed to be used for new construction (and only for that purpose).

But I guess if you've got Republican buddies elected to the TRC, then you can break all the rules you want to and get away with it. The hearing examiners had recommended that Atmos be forced to cut their rates by $23 million to compensate for their misuse of fees. Instead, the TRC is allowing Atmos to raise its rates by $10 million. The new higher rates will begin in April.

But the bad news for Texans doesn't stop there. In addition to letting Atmos abuse its customers, the TRC has voted to shift more of the burden onto residential and commercial customers, and give the huge industrial users a break. This means that while you and I will pay more for our gas, industrial users will be paying significantly less.

I guess this shouldn't surprise any of us. Republicans have been stealing from ordinary Texans and funneling the money to the large corporations for years. This is just Republican business as usual.

But it does bring up this question. Why are they doing this? I can only think of two possible reasons - they are either incredibly stupid or they have been paid off. I don't think they're that stupid.

1 comment:

  1. When are Texans going to get tired of being screwed by the Republicans in our state government?

    Never, they love getting screwed.

    ReplyDelete

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