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UPDATE,
SUMMER 2001
The Bush Administration has
announced plans to drastically increase energy production as their
so-called "solution" to our national energy crunch. This
scheme does nothing about energy waste or price gouging by big
corporations, and must be opposed as anti-consumer and environmentally
destructive.
BACKGROUND
Consumption increased in the 1990s as energy prices fell
or flattened out. The economic expansion also contributed to more use of
gasoline, heating oil, natural gas and electricity.
With the gas lines
and high prices of the 1970s and 1980s just a fading memory, our elected
representatives at both the national and state levels did very little to
reduce the dependency of our country on fossil fuels. Instead, however,
politicians deregulated the energy industry from top to bottom. In
California, for instance, the state legislature deregulated the
electrical industry in 1996 by a unanimous vote of Republicans and
Democrats!
During the 1990s, regulation of energy prices were virtually
eliminated on fuel oils and natural gas, and the electricity industry
was convulsed by a frenzy of restructuring that will ultimately lead to
the removal of remaining price controls. And to top-off this man-made
disaster, the energy industry has experienced an unprecedented wave of
corporate mergers and consolidations, concentrating ownership of the
energy industry as never before.
The unfortunate result of this
deregulation debacle has been rapidly escalating prices for fuels and
electricity due to monopoly price gouging and market manipulation, along
with entire parts of our national electrical system that are on the
verge of collapse. In California, the result is rolling electrical
blackouts, bankrupt utility front companies, and the taxpayers and
ratepayers left holding the candle.
Natural gas customers in the Midwest
are likewise left with heating bills that have soared as much as 500% in
one year, adding up to several thousand dollars in added heating costs.
CURRENT STATUS
The entire energy deregulation craze was largely pushed
by Republicans, often with Democratic help. Politicians who opposed this
fiasco were few and far between.
Although this serious crisis hits hard
at the pocketbooks of working families, there have been few proposals so
far to address the problem. Some lawmakers have promoted increased
financial aid to seniors and the poor for high heating bills, which at
least deals with the hardest-hit victims of the crisis.
Perhaps the only
positive by-product of this mess has been the big setback dealt to
unfolding energy deregulation schemes across the country.
UE POSITION
Our union played a leading role in demanding that the
politicians address the energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, and we’ll
do it again. UE correctly placed the blame for high prices and
shortages on the politicians who refused or failed to challenge
out-of-control corporate greed. Once again, working people are being
victimized and endangered by the energy conglomerates, and we must
demand a political solution to this national crisis.
TALKING POINTS
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The Senate and House of Representatives must act
quickly to stop the energy rip-off of working people. Several
immediate actions must be taken to deal with this national crisis:
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Congress must pass legislation placing an
indefinite moratorium on all further state deregulation of the
electricity industry. Next, each state or regional deregulation
scheme must be analyzed and reviewed for viability, with
protection of the consumers put at the top of the list of
priorities.
-
Congress must investigate the corporate
concentration of power within the energy industry, and question
the U.S. Justice Department/Antitrust Division for its failure
to question or review the avalanche of energy industry mergers
over the past decade. An absolute five-year prohibition on
additional energy company mergers must be imposed.
-
Congress must pass an "Energy Industry
Excess Profits Tax," taxing at a 100% rate all energy
industry profits that exceed 110% of profits reported for the
same periods during 1999.
-
Proceeds of the "Excess Profits Tax"
will be rebated to customers and ratepayers. A formula must be
devised to ensure a proportional rebate to all who were gouged
and over-charged. A massive program to assist working people in
paying their gigantic and unforeseen energy bills must be
initiated and adequately funded.
-
Congress must investigate the extensive
political contributions of the energy industry, and the impact
that this may have had — or might still be having — on the
behavior of elected officials regarding the energy crisis.
-
Immediate price controls must be imposed,
rolling back all prices for electricity, natural gas, gasoline,
diesel fuel, heating oil, and other home heating fuels to levels
not to exceed 110% of their peak levels during 1999.
-
Congress must begin to devise a national energy
policy, exploring and investigating long-term solutions to our
dependence on fossil fuels, with an emphasis on the development
of renewable and clean sources of energy such as solar and
geothermal sources, with a renewed commitment to various
conservation measures.
-
Take advantage of the opportunity during your
Congressional appointment to tell your own story about sky-high
energy bills. Although the energy crisis has hit harder in certain
regions of the country, the effects of deregulation are not yet
being felt in many areas — yet.
-
Can anyone tell us what the purpose of deregulation
of the electrical industry was supposed to be? What was broken that
needed to be fixed? Or was this just a classic case of big business
spreading around campaign cash, talking up a mythical need for a
mythical solution to a mythical problem, and then waiting for the
prices to go up and the profits to roll in?
-
Does Congress intend to do something about the
growing corporate merger wave in the energy industry? Ownership of
the oil, natural gas, and electrical industries is far more
concentrated today than it was in 1973, the year of the first oil
crisis.
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