Quick Summaries of Major Issues
APPA is public power’s national advocate on a variety of issues that affect community- and state-owned electric utilities and their consumers. APPA positions are developed by its membership and guided by the principles that:
- a truly competitive marketplace benefits consumers;
- electric power and broadband services should be accessible and provided at reasonable costs;
- the test for policy initiatives is their effect on the consumer interest; and
- local community decision-making should be respected because it puts consumers first.
The Electricity Marketplace
Almost all public power systems purchase some of their power supply on the wholesale market and two-thirds of them do not generate any of their own electricity, instead relying on the wholesale market exclusively. Ensuring opportunities to secure competitively priced and reliable wholesale power is a priority. APPA is active before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking just and reasonable wholesale rates and a market structure that supports them, advocating for market transparency, supporting protections against anti-competitive practices, and urging caution and care in the consolidation of large utilities. APPA strongly supported the Energy Policy Act of 2005 , the first comprehensive energy bill enacted in 13 years. APPA is now focusing on consumers’ interests as EPACT provisions and other rules are implemented. See comments APPA has filed with the FERC.
In 2006, APPA launched the Electric Market Reform Initiative (EMRI) to address market failures and other serious challenges facing wholesale markets across the country. The initiative is assessing through analytical and research studies continuing and growing problems, particularly in markets run by regional transmission organizations (RTOs) or independent system operators (ISOs). APPA will then work with other stakeholders and policy makers to develop policy proposals that address the problems. APPA has urged Congress to hold oversight hearings on the functioning of the wholesale electricity markets, and to work with states, FERC, and RTOs to solve problems.
Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency
APPA members adopted unanimously a resolution urging Congress to adopt comprehensive legislation to address climate change and to incorporate 11 principles in any new federal policy designed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). They said federal legislation must be economy-wide and apply to all industry sectors, consider the financial impact on consumers, and protect the ability of U.S. industries to compete in world markets. They also asked Congress to ensure that incentives for the development and deployment of renewable and clean energy are provided on a comparable basis to all sectors of the electric utility industry, including the not-for-profit, community- and state-owned public power sector.
Community- and state-owned electric utilities continue to lead the electric utility industry in air quality programs and renewable energy activities. APPA's 2005 report on Public Power: Generating Greener Communities details public power's environmental profile. However, developing new generation to meet local communities’ growing economic needs while increasing environment protections will be a challenge requiring innovative solutions throughout the next decades. As community-owned entities, public power has always been a leader in energy efficiency and its efforts are reported in the APPA publication Easy Steps to Energy Efficieny. APPA also supports the collaborative National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency.
APPA supports the Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) program, which provides tax-based incentives for increased renewable energy production for not-for-profit electric utilities. The first program allocation was made in November 2006; a second round of allocations will be announced soon. APPA supports legislation to extend and modify the CREB program. This year, the House passed two versions of energy legislation that would improve the CREB program to ensure that public power systems receive more CREB allocations. (During the first round of CREB allocations, public power received only $66 million of the $500 million in allocations available to governmental bodies.) Unfortunately, the Senate has been unable to approve the tax title of its respective energy bills that include the CREB program improvements. Early in 2008, Congress is expected to make another attempt to pass a package of energy tax incentives that would include the extension and expansion of the CREB program. Current law sunsets the CREB program at the end of 2008.
Additional resources on public power’s environmental leadership are available from the Plug-In Partners National Campaign, APPA’s TREE POWER program, APPA’s general Environmental pages, Renewable Energy Resources pages, and Energy Efficiency pages.
Coal Rail Transportation
Coal fuels one-third of the nation’s power supply, but monopoly practices of the nation’s major railroads artificially increase its price and threaten deliveries to power plants. Rail customers across the electric utility and other vital sectors of the economy have united under the banner of Consumers United for Rail Equity, to advocate reform legislation and regulatory changes. APPA and its members are active partners in the effort.
Keeping Communities Connected
More than 700 public power systems offer internal or external community broadband services to their communities. However, privately owned broadband service providers - primarily large incumbent cable TV and telephone interests - are using their resources to prevent cities and towns from offering such services. APPA advocates that as Congress makes changes to existing communications laws, it should ensure that cities and towns will be able to own and operate broadband infrastructure and services in the public interest if their citizens so desire. APPA has endorsed provisions in both House and Senate version of The Community Broadband Act of 2007 that supports local community decision making.
The APPA publication Community Broadband: Separating Fact From Fiction details the private companies’ attacks on community ownership of broadband resources and provides facts about public power’s track record. See APPA’s Community Broadband Web pages for a variety of documents. Additional resources can be found at www.baller.com/library.html.
Contacts:
communicationsdept@APPAnet.org; 202/ 467-2900
