RE: Avista's Surcharge

["John Guyer" <johnguy@moscow.com>]

Mr. Merril,

While I do not have any additional information to add regarding the
surcharge, I hope that your comment was a joke regarding President Bush.
Or, perhaps, I misunderstood what you mean by "Write it off as the cost
of having Bush in the Whitehouse."

If I remember correctly, the deregulation of the power industry began in
the previous administration (back in 1998).  And, the problems in
California have much to do with insufficient power production in that
state.  Even so, I would not take that as an opportunity to take a "dig"
at either of those administrations (Federal or State of California).
That doesn't help people understand the situation, nor equip them to
help solve the problem.  Laying the blame at President Bush's doorstep
certainly doesn't help.

Here is a site provided by the DOE that shows state by state what the
status is. Note that Idaho and Washington have not started to
deregulate.  That means OUR PAIN IS LIKELY YET TO COME.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/chg_str/regmap.html

Historically, anytime you deregulate an industry, you have these kinds
of things happening at the beginning.  BTW, The rural distributors (the
various REAs) are in a world of hurt as they have the farthest distance
to run their grids and the fewest subscribers.  I have not followed
things with the REAs closely enough to know what their options are, but
from here, things don't look very good.

Just trying to help keep the facts straight.

John Guyer

-----Original Message-----
From: Troy Merrill [mailto:troy1@moscow.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 6:14 PM
To: jaycron@turbonet.com; "Vision 2020 (E-mail)" <Vision 2020
Subject: Re: Avista's Surcharge


I think this is fallout over Enron and other energy traders inflating
the costs of power the summer before last.  If I understand the skam
Avista has contract obligations to put so much power on the power grid
at an agreed upon price.  Under normal regulated conditions any
shortages that result from that obligation are bought at approximately
the same price as that they sold.  When power became "scarce" and
unregulated Avista could not fulfill their contractual obligations
without paying much more than anticipated because Enron was buying it to
sell to California at dramatically inflated prices.  Write it off as the
cost of having Bush in the Whitehouse.

Troy Merrill

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cronin" <jaycron@turbonet.com>
To: ""Vision 2020 (E-mail)" <Vision 2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 5:53 PM
Subject: Avista's Surcharge


> We all received a notice in our most recent Avista bill informing us 
> that Avista has filed "a request to continue the existing Power Cost 
> Adjustment surcharge of 19.4% for an additional 12 months. The current

> surcharge at the same rate will expire on October 11th.
>
> The notice tells us the purpose is to "recover  excess power costs" 
> Avista admits that they are due to collect $23.6 million annually. The

> notice goes on to say, "Avista makes no profit from surcharge revenues

> and actually is required to absorb 10% of excess power costs"  Mmmm.
>
> Why is Avista in such financial trouble?  Will this surcharge become 
> permanent?  Are there reasons that justify a customer bailout of 
> Avista?
>
>
> John
>
>
>