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"The shocking burden of $800 light bills"
(NCEMPA = N.C. Eastern Municipal Power Agency)
....
Of the 32 NCEMPA towns, 11 have poverty rates of over 30 percent. Many are in North Carolina’s 10 federally designated “persistent poverty” counties. Robeson is the state’s poorest county and has among its highest electric bills. Like everything else concerning poverty in North Carolina, the burden of NCEMPA’s jaw-dropping rates is also racially skewed. The aggregate population of the member counties is nearly 40 percent African-American. Our statewide figure is 21 percent.
....
First, and dominantly, over 30 years ago, NCEMPA gambled on nuclear power, buying significant ownership interests in the Shearon Harris and Brunswick plants. Construction and operation costs proved dramatically higher than projected. As a result, NCEMPA members are saddled with a debt in excess of $2 billion. Payments on the obligation constitute over a third of wholesale power costs. The stranglehold lasts until 2025.
Second, state law allows cities to sell electricity at rates that exceed costs and then to transfer the surplus to their general operating funds. These regressive “transfers” – shifting the cost of local government from more progressive taxes to a basic necessity of life – are employed by many NCEMPA cities. Wealthy constituents find the arrangement congenial. Low-income residents and renters are hit hard.
To add insult, NCEMPA communities sell electricity to customers outside their municipal boundaries but within mandated service areas. These customers can’t vote in city elections or run for office. But they involuntarily subsidize city services and reduced property tax rates. As McQueen, who lives just outside Red Springs’ boundary, explains: “It’s taxation without representation.”
....
Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley distinguished professor at the UNC School of Law and director of the school’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/30/2788956/the-shocking-burden-of-800-light.html#storylink=cpy
Of the 32 NCEMPA towns, 11 have poverty rates of over 30 percent. Many are in North Carolina’s 10 federally designated “persistent poverty” counties. Robeson is the state’s poorest county and has among its highest electric bills. Like everything else concerning poverty in North Carolina, the burden of NCEMPA’s jaw-dropping rates is also racially skewed. The aggregate population of the member counties is nearly 40 percent African-American. Our statewide figure is 21 percent.
....
First, and dominantly, over 30 years ago, NCEMPA gambled on nuclear power, buying significant ownership interests in the Shearon Harris and Brunswick plants. Construction and operation costs proved dramatically higher than projected. As a result, NCEMPA members are saddled with a debt in excess of $2 billion. Payments on the obligation constitute over a third of wholesale power costs. The stranglehold lasts until 2025.
Second, state law allows cities to sell electricity at rates that exceed costs and then to transfer the surplus to their general operating funds. These regressive “transfers” – shifting the cost of local government from more progressive taxes to a basic necessity of life – are employed by many NCEMPA cities. Wealthy constituents find the arrangement congenial. Low-income residents and renters are hit hard.
To add insult, NCEMPA communities sell electricity to customers outside their municipal boundaries but within mandated service areas. These customers can’t vote in city elections or run for office. But they involuntarily subsidize city services and reduced property tax rates. As McQueen, who lives just outside Red Springs’ boundary, explains: “It’s taxation without representation.”
....
Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley distinguished professor at the UNC School of Law and director of the school’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/30/2788956/the-shocking-burden-of-800-light.html#storylink=cpy
Solutions?
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