Unwelcome Delivery: The Hike in Electric Bills

Electric rates in the Southwest Virginia region have gone up considerably.

I have long warned the policies of the Left, including Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, would make electric rates skyrocket.

The policies forcing electric rates higher are hurting regular families. Families who are managing grocery bills, gas charges, and other essential expenses.

I understand the frustrations with the rises in the costs we are seeing. And some legislators in the Commonwealth of Virginia are joining the fight and trying to address the issue.

Senators Travis Hackworth (R-Tazewell) and Todd Pillion (R-Abingdon) are the lead patrons of a bill in the Virginia Senate known as the AEP Accountability Act.

AEP is the American Electric Power company that serves a majority of the Ninth Congressional District through its Appalachian Power Company (APCo).

Other electric providers in our part of Virginia include Dominion Power and Old Dominion Power (ODP), which is owned by Kentucky Utilities, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) affiliated local power companies, county and city-owned public power companies, and electric cooperatives like Craig-Botetourt.

Dominion Power’s Virginia Electric and Power Company not only supplies power to some residents of the Ninth District, but also supplies power to much of Virginia, including many localities closer to Richmond.

Across the board, customers of these power companies have seen hikes in their electric bills. In the APCo service area, ratepayers are seeing dramatic increases.

Because of our region’s proximity to coal reserves, APCo and ODP both historically built many coal power plants to produce electricity as it was cheap to transport fuel to the plant.

At one time, prices were so low that the APCo footprint in Southwest Virginia had some of the lowest electricity prices in the country. That was a major selling point for attracting companies and investments.

But then the Obama Administration started the War on Coal.

The Glen Lyn plant in Giles County, for instance, closed its doors in 2015. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced many plants to shutter their doors with an onslaught of interlocking rules that were impossible for many coal-fired power plants to comply with.

After the Trump Administration relaxed some of these regulations, President Biden reintroduced regulations that put more pressure on coal. The Biden Administration’s message: either comply by making costly changes to your plant or face permanent closure.

In accordance with pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose members are appointed by the president, public companies and investors have reduced fossil fuel and coal-related financing.

EPA regulations resulted in the shutdown of the Glen Lyn plant.

State Democrats and Governor Northam passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which initially required, among other things, Dominion Energy and APCo to retire most fossil fuel plants in Virginia by 2024.

One exemption is Virginia City, the hybrid energy center in St. Paul, which is allowed to operate until 2045.

I attended the opening of Virginia City in September of 2012. The plant had immense potential, as it was a model for clean coal-fired power plants employing technological innovations and protecting the environment in the process.

Further, it had a useful life expectancy of 50 years or more! Even with the exemption until 2045, the facility would be forced to be closed prior to the useful time the ratepayers are paying for.

Electric power plants forced into retirement despite years of life left in them are stranded assets.

When they shut down ahead of schedule, the ratepayer still has to pay for the stranded asset.

As a result, customers are paying for the existing fossil fuel electric generation facilities, on top of paying for the new and more expensive green energy projects.

The rush to green energy is going so quickly that electric utilities are leaving behind numerous assets. Once mothballed, they cannot easily be used again.

Unfortunately, many out-of-touch officials do not understand the real-world consequences of imposing costly regulations that drive up energy prices.

There are lots of questions to be answered on Senator Hackworth and Pillion’s legislation, but I commend them for the effort.

I myself am committed to work to find solutions for federal energy policies that use all of our natural resources while improving our ability to produce affordable electricity.

I will continue to fight against radical, so-called “Green New Deal” policies. Policies that threaten your pocketbook.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at morgangriffith.house.gov. Also on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.