Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District
Issues
National Energy Issues & Events
Inslee Introduces Energy Legislation
Cost-Based Rates Needed in West
- [ F.A.Q. about this legislation and discharge petition ]
- [ Text of the legislation ] (HTML).
- [ Text of the legislation ] (Adobe Acrobat*).
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Wednesday, 4 April 2001
U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee introduced his "Energy Price and Economic and Stability Act of 2001," (H.R. 1468) which instructs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to implement short-term cost-of-service based energy rates.
Inslee has been working with Members of the California delegation to develop this legislation, which would sunset on March 1, 2003. The bill exempts new generation facilities from the rate limits, in order to encourage new energy generation. Should FERC ignore the will of Congress, states would have the right to appeal to federal courts.
Said Inslee, "There is no doubt that the Western United States is suffering from an energy crisis. Citizens in Washington State and elsewhere are experiencing skyrocketing electricity bills, while local businesses halt production and lay off employees, and our rivers run dry in an effort to sap the last dregs of hydropower at the cost of our endangered salmon."
"The federal government has the ability to avoid an economic catastrophe by imposing cost-based prices rates on the wholesale price of energy. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has the power to do this, and has enforced cost-based rates many times in past situations. However, the Bush Administration adamantly refuses to even consider price caps for the Western States now. Vice President Cheney and his Energy Task Force even refused to meet with twenty-five Members of Congress, including myself, who wrote to ask for a discussion about this issue."
"Cost-based rates make sense. A perfect storm formed by a drought in the Pacific Northwest, and a political debacle in California has given electricity generators an opportunity to game the electricity market, and earn unprecedented rate increases of five, ten, and even twenty times the usual prices."
"The Bush Administration's callously indifferent statement that this is simply a 'California problem' and that there is no short-term solution threatens not just consumers in the Pacific Northwest, but the entire U.S. economy. The Administration's excuse that cost-based rates would act as a disincentive for the construction of new power plants flies in the face of the simple fact that we designed cost-based rates to exempt power generated by new power plants."
"We are in a crisis, and inaction is not an option. Democrats will continue our efforts in Congress to pass legislation to require action. We will not rest until some degree of sanity is restored to this chaotic energy system that now poses such a threat to our economy."