At the request of the alert Assemb. James Brennan (D-Brooklyn), a national utility analyst named Marilyn Showalter of Power in the Public Interest localized some of her recent work on the aftermath of the Pataki-era deregulation of state utilities beginning in 1999. What she found: electric rates in states that retained regulation rose between 2000 and 2007 from 6 cents to 7.6 cents per kilowatt hour. In the same period, New York state's prices jumped from 10.4 cents to 14.4 cents per kilowatt hour.
Based on these numbers, Brennan contends that had prices here gone up only at the same rate as those in other regulated states, there would not have been an excess cost totalling $1.65 billion for power in 2007 and $2.3 billion in 2003. Brennan states that Showalter cautioned the difference "could not be attributed solely to deregulation." But, as his published piece adds, she also said "the trend strongly suggested that deregulation was a major factor in 'excess' price rises.
Brennan, who's expected to run in 2009 for NYC comptroller, has introduced legislation that would require utlities to put out bids for long-term contracts for electric power.
UPDATE: Kilowatt hour price number corrrected above.
Dan Janison
Comments (2)
This is shocking, but, somehow, not surprising, given how much we pay for electricity in this state, especially in NYC.
Why hasn't this been looked into before? It seems that deregulation has pretty much been a failure here and many other places as well.
I hope this story gets big notice and that the State of NY does something about it.
There is a typo in the last sentence of your first paragraph. "1.4 cents" should be "10.4" cents.