CouleeConservatives.com

Once the Assembly Special Committee on Green Energy Jobs wrapped up its two public hearings on Governor Doyle’s Global Warming bill, the co-chairs conceded that some rewrites were necessary.  Yet, both co-chair Jim Soletski (D-Green Bay) and the governor have said they want to preserve the requirement that 25% of the electricity used in Wisconsin must come from renewable sources by 2025.  Based on Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) data, it will cost electric customers more than $15 billion to make that happen.  And, according to the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force, it won’t result in a measurable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Doyle Administration appointees tasked with salvaging the governor’s bill acknowledge that it means electricity will cost more.  The proposal also requires taxes on utility bills to go up.  But all of this, they say, will save you money.

This only sounds ridiculous, because it is.  Doyle and the Democrat lawmakers who support his bill have tried to conjure a cost savings by comparing the price hikes to a hypothetical utility bill instead of the one you pay today and by excluding the new taxes from the estimates.

The Doyle Administration says that a massive investment in new renewable generation, primarily wind farms, will save electric customers in the long run once the state of Wisconsin or the federal government imposes a $20 per ton tax on coal.  Such a tax doesn’t exist today, it hasn’t been proposed in our state and lawmakers of both political parties are standing in the way of such a policy in Washington, D.C.

But it takes more than a controversial and nonexistent tax on coal to invent a cost savings.  Under the Doyle Administration’s scenario, electric customers must also use less electricity than they do today - 2 percent less electricity annually.  Economic growth and advancements in technology has meant steady increases in electric usage.  Only twice since WWII has Wisconsin come close to a 2 percent reduction, once during the 1982 recession and again in 2001.  It’s possible our negative numbers in 2009 reached 2%, but if so, it’s being driven by factory closings and job losses and it’s certainly not cause of celebration. Bringing new manufacturing facilities on-line and creating new jobs will mean using more energy, not less, no matter how efficient those operations are.

Today, electric customers pay a 1.2 percent tax on monthly bills to fund government-run energy conservation and efficiency programs.  Governor Doyle’s bill allows the PSC to increase that tax without limits and without legislative approval.  The PSC’s charge is to invest enough money in energy efficiency and conservation to reduce annual electricity consumption by 2 percent.

The PSC commissioned an Energy Center of Wisconsin study last fall to calculate the cost of this never-before achieved reduction in the consumption of electricity.  Researchers said reducing consumption by 1.6 percent will cost electric customers $350 million per year.  The cost more than doubles to $700 million a year when the goal is set at 1.9 percent.  Under the governor’s bill, these annual taxes would continue until at least 2025, totaling at least $10.5 billion.

The PSC calculations that show a reduction in utility bills by presuming a tax on coal and a decline in electric consumption of at least 1.6 percent ignore the $700 million annual utility tax hike.  From what I can gather, the PSC has chosen to make a distinction between the global warming legislation’s impact on “customer bills” and on utility taxes.  In a February letter to the committee, PSC Chair Eric Callisto points to generation, transmission, distribution and customers service costs and "other things unaffected by the proposed legislation" when concluding that electric bills will fall.  He relegates the discussion of energy conservation programs to a footnote and never acknowledges that they cost money in the form of new taxes.

In addition to all of this, the Doyle Administration has never put a price tag on the 25 percent by 2025 renewable energy mandate.  In his letter to committee members, Chair Callisto recognized that cost data from his agency’s most recent Strategic Energy Assessment is the basis for the $15 billion estimate – the only estimate made to date.  But he called the calculation incomplete and said that the price is not $15 billion.  He did not advise committee members of his preferred method for calculating the cost to electric customers and declined to provide an estimate of what it might be.

Of course, once the PSC attaches a cost to the renewable energy mandate, it will have to revise its estimated cost savings to utility customers. Add another $10.5 billion in taxes to fund energy conservation and efficiency programs and its harder to manufacturer a cost savings.  Compare those monthly utility bills to the ones you’re paying today and it won’t be good news for the family budget or for employers' bottom lines.