Time to Blow Your Horn: Public Power Week (October 3-9)!

Most of MEUW’s 82 member utilities celebrate being a publicly owned utility 12 months per year. But there is one special week each year during which we can all stand just a bit taller.

Each year, Public Power Week is recognized across the country, and here in Wisconsin among the 82 community owned electric utilities. Statewide, Governor Doyle will issue an official proclamation proclaiming October 3-9, 2010, to be Public Power Week, and locally, MEUW members will celebrate the week in many ways. This dedicated week gives MEUW members a chance to share with their customers all of the benefits that a municipally-owned electric utility provides to its community, including not-for-profit community ownership, local control, low rates, top-notch customer service and a high degree of public accountability.

Over the last several years, MEUW member utilities have celebrated Public Power Week by holding open houses, cookouts, root beer float ice cream socials, issuing energy conservation challenges to their customers, raffling off energy efficient appliances, conducting “public power walks” through the community, and displaying various plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Public Power Week also gives municipal utilities a chance to educate and inform their customers about some of the great energy efficiency and conservation programs available to help them reduce their electricity consumption.

What is your utility doing this year? Share your stories and pictures with MEUW and APPA so other public power utilities can enjoy your celebration with you. You can obtain a full Public Power Week toolkit with resources and ideas through the APPA website (www.appanet.org).

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APPA Washington Report
What’s Around the Corner on Climate Change
by Robert Varela, Editor, APPA’s Public Power Weekly

Efforts to pass a climate change bill appear to have turned a corner.

A few weeks before a self-imposed deadline of Congress’s August recess, Senate Democrats gave up on passing a comprehensive, economy-wide climate change and energy bill, specifically the American Power Act introduced by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.

With a big cap-and-trade bill dead, they turned to Plan B—a “utility-only” bill that would impose an emissions cap on electric utilities only. Both Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Kerry and Lieberman put together draft utility-only bills. The Kerry-Lieberman bill ran to more than 600 pages.

With time running out, they never got a chance to finish their drafts. The utility-only concept picked up support from a few individual investor-owned utilities, but it also ran into vocal opposition from some quarters. APPA supports an economy-wide approach, under a policy resolution adopted by its member utilities in 2008. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, American Chemistry Council and American Iron and Steel Institute came out publicly against the utility-only concept.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., took it down to the wire, waiting as long as he could before tossing in the towel on passing utility-only climate change legislation—for now. "We know we don't have the votes," he said. Supporters reportedly were about 10 votes shy of the 60 they needed.

Reid’s decision shifts attention to the Environmental Protection Agency's pending greenhouse gas regulations and to efforts in Congress to delay those regulations. "We will continue to use all of the tools available to us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Carol Browner, director of the White House office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, told reporters. "The president believes in the science, he believes in the Supreme Court decision, and we will continue to move forward." In other words, don’t expect EPA to slow down.

Prospects for congressional action to rein in EPA are questionable. Reid last month agreed to allow a vote this year on a bill introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., to delay EPA regulation for two years, but passage by the Senate is uncertain and the House could be a bigger hurdle. And President Obama is expected to veto any delay bill.

A delay provision in an appropriations bill could be a possibility. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior and Environment on July 22 rejected an amendment offered by Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, that would have put off EPA regulation of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The amendment failed on a 7-7 tie vote, with two Democrats voting for it.

Democrats will continue to try to garner the 60 votes needed to pass climate change legislation, Reid said, without committing to a timetable. However, sources say that while an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill is dead, Senate Democrats will revisit the issue this fall with a utility-only bill. For the foreseeable future, an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill seems to have been ruled out.

There has also been speculation that Democrats might try to add climate change provisions to a bill during a House-Senate conference. Citing the possibility, Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., introduced a bill in late July that would prevent cap-and-trade from being added to a House-Senate Conference bill if previous action has not been taken in the Senate.

It’s hard to say what’s ahead around this corner. One guess is that Congress will do what it so often does—nothing. The best chance for a utility-only climate bill (and it’s a long shot) would be if utilities cut a deal to support a bill in exchange for relief from EPA regulations. Democratic leaders also will face a lot of pressure from coal-state members and moderates to delay an EPA carbon emissions rule, but enactment still looks unlikely.

EPA shows no signs of slowing down on climate change or a variety of other regulations that could have significant impacts on power plants. However, the courts could slow down the agency, perhaps for a few years.

It’s an uncertain future at best, but that seems to what’s around the corner.

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$5.2 Million Federal Grant Received
Reedsburg Telecommunications Utility to Expand

Since becoming a founding member of the MEUW Community Broadband Group in 1999, the Reedsburg Utility Commission, under the leadership of General Manager Dave Mikonowicz, has led the fight for municipal broadband networks. Now, more than a decade later Reedsburg continues its efforts to bring advanced telecommunications services to rural parts of Wisconsin, this time with the help of a $5.2 million USDA Rural Utilities Service grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“I am pleased to see Recovery Act funds working for our communities,” said Rep. Ron Kind (D-3rd CD). “This award will make a significant impact on the Reedsburg area. Not only will it provide for economic development and create local jobs, but it will help foster new opportunities in education and business, allowing this community to actively participate in the 21st Century global economy.”

The federal grant will allow Reedsburg to extend an existing municipal FTTP network to the surrounding rural areas to provide affordable advanced broadband service to residents and businesses currently confined to traditional dial‐up, unreliable wireless, and costly satellite services.

“We'll be building the northern one-third of Sauk County with fiber (optic cable) to the home," said Mikonowicz. The federal money will be supplemented by a $2.3 million loan from Community First Bank, Reedsburg, Mikonowicz said.

Reedsburg already provides high-speed Internet to customers in the city, about 55 miles northwest of Madison. The new funding will cover the cost of laying another 375 miles of fiber-optic cable, extending service to 310 businesses and more than 2,400 homes in terrain that is often steep, rocky and hilly, Mikonowicz said. He said the project will likely take three years to complete. For more information about the Reedsburg Utility Commission and its services, you can visit: www.reedsburgutility.com.

Reedsburg, along with about 20 other MEUW Members are part of the MEUW Community Broadband Group, which continues to be the only organization in Wisconsin representing and fighting for municipally owned broadband networks.

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September 29 in Wisconsin Dells
MEUW Accounting & Customer Service Seminar

The 2010 MEUW Accounting & Customer Service Seminar has been set for Wednesday, September 29. By popular demand, we will once again be at Glacier Canyon Lodge at the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells.

This year’s seminar will focus more on accounting topics than in the recent past. There will be presentations on banking services; sales tax issues; financing options; a potpourri of accounting topics; and an open records update. In addition, PSC Commissioner Mark Meyer has agreed to join us to discuss current issues. We will conclude with the popular Open Forum.

To further assist front office staff at MEUW Member utilities, we will be holding our bi-annual MEUW Collections Seminar on February 24, 2011, in Stevens Point. We hope you will take advantage of both opportunities for education and networking.

This year’s registration fee for the Accounting & Customer Service Seminar is $90 for MEUW member utilities and $110 for non-members. Registration materials were sent to your utility in mid-August, and they are also available online at www.meuw.org/events.

Those who wish to stay overnight on the night of September 28 should telephone Glacier Canyon Lodge (800/867-WILD) by August 28 to make your reservations. Be sure to ask for the MEUW block to receive the special rate of $70 single/$99 double.

See you at the 2010 MEUW Accounting & Customer Service Seminar!

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September 28 in Green Bay
WPUI “Smart Meter” Seminar

The Wisconsin Public Utility Institute (WPUI) has scheduled a “Smart Meter” Seminar in Green Bay on Tuesday, September 28 (9 a.m.-4 p.m.). Hosted by Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPSC), the program is titled “Retail's Evolution of Providing and Buying Energy: Feedback on Feedback” and will explore some of the technical, financial and policy issues associated with the evolutionary “smart meter” trends that are emerging in our energy industry.

The Seminar will look at the WPSC pilot program from a local distribution company perspective. It will also cover recently released results for the electric demand response programs in California that have incorporated smart metering and some potential hiccups that need to be addressed. Terminology has bounced around with the introduction of new meter options and from transmission grid enhancements – Seminar participants will look at what is meant by a standard Watt meter, AMI, AMR, Smart Meters and at how SCADA compares to the Smart Grid. It may be the case that Smart Grid is not suited to your utility. Or it may be that according to your utility’s goals and mission, you would like to move forward to get into a position to deploy a smart meter/grid system. WPS will introduce you to a system they used to determine where they stood on the adoption curve. And there may be a possible tour of the WPS research center, which incorporates some of the newest appliance technology currently available, depending on demand.

The registration fee is $100 for MEUW Member utilities. For more information and to register, go to: http://wpui.wisc.edu/.

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Remind Your Customers to Contact Diggers Hotline at “811” Before Their Digging Projects

On August 11 (8-11), Diggers Hotline reminded Wisconsin residents to think about “811” on 8-11. Please share this information with your customers; residential and business customers as well as local contractors.

Contacting Diggers Hotline before digging will help ensure that the location of buried utility lines is marked before excavation begins. Diggers Hotline takes information about your dig site and passes it on to the appropriate utility companies. Those companies then send out professional field locators who mark the approximate location of buried lines with paint and flags. Filing a free request with Diggers Hotline by either dialing “811” or (800) 242-8511 or online at www.DiggersHotline.com is required by state law before every digging project.

Projects such as planting trees or shrubs, building a deck or installing a rural mailbox all require contacting Diggers Hotline three working days before beginning the project. Failure to call before digging results in more than 200,000 unintentional hits annually across the nation. Don’t become part of the statistic – make sure to call! Visit www.DiggersHotline.com for more state information about 811 and the call-before-you-dig process.

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