Tea party targeting Southern Co. power monopoly

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By RAY HENRY

ATLANTA (AP) - The Southern Co. (SO) makes billion-dollar decisions that affect millions of people in Georgia, yet it has attracted little political scrutiny - until now.

Leaders of the Atlanta Tea Party are challenging Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power over the monopoly's reluctance to increase its use of solar power, the ballooning costs of building a new nuclear power plant and even its legal right to monopoly status.

The group's action in Georgia seems relatively rare among the loosely linked tea party organizations nationally.

Other tea party groups have condemned the adoption of "smart" utility meters - which transmit information about customer usage - due to concerns that they would intrude on customers' privacy, or have broadly backed less reliance on foreign energy. But relatively few have endorsed so specific an energy platform in their own backyards, much less promised to campaign on it.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130602/DA6LMHNG0.html

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In this April 28, 2010 file photo, steam rises from the cooling towers of nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, in Waynesboro, Ga. Atlanta Tea Party members say they will intensify efforts to challenge Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power over its reluctance to increase solar energy use and the ballooning costs of building a nuclear power plant southeast of Augusta. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain, File)

[RobertEarl]

1. I'll drink to that

Imagine that, enviros and the teabaggers going after the 'too big to fail' power suppliers, together.

What prophecy does that fulfill? The lion lies down with the lamb, maybe?

[Puzzledtraveller]

2. I'm cool with working on common ground issues

[RobertEarl]

6. Well, we are the 99%

We do have some things in common, eh?

[Left Coast2020]

20. Some things in common?

Are you kidding? My landlord is a fire-breathing tea freak--just like this dude:


Okay, I'll give you credit. Maybe .0011% of the tea-freaks have some intelligence. But in science, that would be phenomenon. But the rest of them are in the "Bachmann Syndrome" class.

[Ian David]

3. What are they REALLY trying to do? n/t

[LeftInTX]

5. Yep, they've gotta be up to some kind of no good

It is the TEA Party and the LOVE monopolies, coal and oil.

[okaawhatever]

16. The tea party in Georgia is the one that received almost twenty million from Koch and his friends.

The Koch brothers are involved in energy so i'm sure there's a connection there somewhere. Southern Co. would be a competitor to Koch, maybe the whole "there shouldn't be a monopoly" is so the Kochs can get in there and grab up some business for themselves.

[Ian David]

21. I thought it might be something like that. n/t

[Enrique]

22. that's my suspicion as well

I used to do customer service for a deregulated natural gas company in Georgia, and I came away with the impression that deregulation was a giant scam, and that the energy traders were simply sucking money out of the people of Georgia. My guess is that the Kochs want to do that with electricity there.

I'll tell you one thing that the Kochs AREN'T trying to do: advance solar energy.

[Mister Ed]

4. Hard to believe. But, well, kudos to them in this instance.

Even a bad dog deserves a biscuit for doing a good trick.

[Yavin4]

7. Must be getting chilly in Hell n/t

[marble falls]

8. The Tea Party is starting to evolve?

[starroute]

9. When it's their utility bills that are going up, they notice

I'm glad, though. Southern Co. is not only pushing nukes -- they also have a long history of corruption. Greg Palast wrote about their frauds extensively a couple of decades back.

Here's something I posted about them in 2009:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5383063&mesg_id=5383602

And here's something I posted in 2010:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4328610&mesg_id=4328936

[xenoturkey]

10. Nuts to that.

Socal utilties are doing fine. (My parents live there).

This marketization of seemingly every utility (Wasn't there the TN one the other day?) is getting real old, real fast.

[Bjorn Against]

11. Is there any possible tie to T. Boone Pickens here?

He was one of the top funders of the Swift Boat ads that were ran against Kerry in 2004, the guy is a hard core right-winger but he sometimes speaks sense on energy issues. He has huge financial interests in renewable energy so he can sound very progressive when he talks about adopting renewable energy sources, but make no mistake about it the guy is very much a Tea Party type on nearly every other issue. I don't know if T. Boone Pickens is funding this Tea Party group, but this story would make a lot more sense if he were involved.

[okaawhatever]

17. Probably I know the Georgia tea party group ended up with 20 mil when everyone else just made a

couple grand. I know the Koch bros supported them but I know there were others also. Koch is into energy, as is T Boone so there's a play there somewhere. I haven't met a tea partier yet who was interested in anyone else's interests. Plus, they don't believe in the epa or climate protection so this doesn't make sense.

[jmowreader]

12. I think what they're most pissed-off about...

is two things.

First, Georgia Power is going to be allowed to pass the finance costs of building the nuke plants on to consumers before the reactors come on line.

And second (perhaps the big one), in Georgia utility monopolies are allowed. They worship the "free market."

[onehandle]

13. The Southern Company are scum. The Tea Party are scum.

Let's hope they destroy each other.

[lunasun]

14. Monopolies have few friends

[EC]

15. Really?

I guess the cost of nuclear is making them realize how much cheaper free sourced energy is.

[eppur_se_muova]

18. Even a blind nut can find a squirrel now and then ...

but I tend to agree with the conspiracy theorists on this one.

[Eleanors38]

19. 2 observations about people in Tea Party:

1) They are in position to take an increasingly populist bent, since the Democratic Party (and certainly the Repub Party) has ceded that approach to change to no one in particular, save some OWS locals;

2) If the Democratic Party truly overhauls itself into an engine of progressive-left change, it WILL talk to the people in what is now the "Tea Party," and make common ground with them.

[billh58]

23. And here come the

"Libertarian progressives" to the defense of the right-wing, Koch Brothers-funded Tea Baggers.

[Eric J in MN]

24. Voter ID

"they are working on a voter identification and education project ahead of the 2014 elections to increase their clout and boost turnout."

Voter ID requirements DECREASE turnout.

[Jennicut]

25. My husband put in the utility meters in CT....how could those things pick up personal info?

He works for Yankee Gas. He once had to put in the meters for CT Light and Power before he switched jobs to the partner gas company here in CT. They pick up readings on meter info but I'm scratching my head as to how those meters would allow someone to somehow garner other kinds info from a person's house. Meters are usually outside along a house or in a basement. Is someone going to put a bug in it? I find it amusing. The meter switch over went fine in CT but lots of meter readers had to find new jobs. The cost of tech.

[Politicalboi]

26. That's what this is about

The Teabaggers once again think someone is "spying" on them. They're no environmentalist by any means.

The freedom to leave a light on without some "liberal" turning it off.

These are the "bulb police" people. We can use whatever bulb we want, even if it makes our electric bill bigger.

[Jennicut]

27. I just never thought of the van driver meter readers as spies before

Most of them just ride around all day hoping the meter frequency readings work and pass the time listening to Howard Stern on the radio. It's not an exciting job per my husband. Tea baggers are so paranoid.