Utility Rates Skyrocket

KissMy

Free Breast Exam
Oct 10, 2009
19,518
5,469
255
In your head
Utility Rates Skyrocket - Is this inflation for printing all that money? Are we paying for all those empty homes without service? Is this to meet federally mandated clean water standards?

Anthem, Arizona to raise water & sewer rates by 91% - The Arizona Republic Apr. 12, 2010
Anthem, Arizona residents whose homes have 3/4-inch meters pay an average of $85 a month for water and sewer. If the commission approves the rate increases, those residents will pay $78 per month more for water and sewer.

Houston's Water-sewer rates to climb 30% - HOUSTON CHRONICLE April 21, 2010
The City Council on Wednesday raised water and sewer rates by nearly 30 percent on an average single-family household, among the largest increases in Houston's history and one that places the city's rates at a higher level than many major U.S. municipalities.

St. Louis / St. Charles, MO Water Rates increase 50% - ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/24/2010
The water company that serves much of suburban St. Louis is seeking a third rate increase since 2007, a request that would boost bills an additional 21 percent and make tap water 50 percent more expensive than it was four years ago.

AmerenUE electric-rate increase 26% in 6 months.

And the list goes on.
 
Last edited:
Granny says it costs a lotta money to keep warm inna winter...
:eek:
Electricity Price Surged to All-Time Record for March
April 16, 2014 -- The average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity hit a March record of 13.5 cents, according data released yesterday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was up about 5.5 percent from 12.8 cents per KWH in March 2013.
The relative price of electricity in the United States tends to rise in spring, peak in summer, and decline in fall. Last year, after the price of a KWH averaged 12.8 cents in March, it rose to an all-time high of 13.7 cents in June, July, August and September. If the prevailing trend holds, the average price of a KWH would hit a new record this summer. The BLS’s seasonally adjusted electricity price index rose to 209.341 this March, the highest it has ever been, up 10.537 points—or 5.3 percent--from 198.804 in March 2013.

AVERAGE%20PRICE%20OF%20KWH-MARCH-PHOTO-1.jpg


In its press release on the Consumer Price Index, BLS noted that the overall energy index declined in March, driven by declining gasoline and fuel oil indexes, despite increases in natural gas and electricity. ”The energy index fell 0.1 percent in March after a 0.5 percent decline in February,” said BLS. “The gasoline index declined 1.7 percent in March, the same decline as in February. (Before seasonal adjustment, gasoline prices rose 5.1 percent in March). “The fuel oil index also declined, falling 2.9 percent after rising 4.1 percent the previous month,” said BLS. “In contrast, the index for natural gas rose sharply, increasing 7.5 percent, its largest one-month increase since October 2005. It has increased 15.3 percent over the last three months. “The electricity index also increased, rising 1.1 percent,” said BLS. ”Over the last 12 months, the energy index has increased 0.4 percent, with the natural gas index rising 16.4 percent, the electricity index increasing 5.3 percent, and the fuel oil index advancing 2.1 percent. These increases more than offset a 4.7 percent decline in the gasoline index.”

ELECTRICITY%20PRICE%20INDEX-1913-2013-1.jpg


Historically, rising electricity prices have not been inevitable in the United States. The BLS’s annual electricity price index—which goes back a century—shows that electricity prices generally declined in the United States between 1913 and the end of World War II. They then held relatively steady for about two decades before beginning to escalate in the late 1960s. As CNSNews.com reported in February, per capita electricity production peaked in the United States in 2007.

Electricity Price Surged to All-Time Record for March | CNS News
 
supply and demand sets prices also......just think what we would pay if it was in the futures market...my electric bill this winter was 400 dollars a month for three months...it was higher in 2001, I had one bill that was 500 bucks, but i live where we have a cooperative it is higher than the actual producers cost to the consumer..
 
Last edited:
supply and demand sets prices also......just think what we would pay if it was in the futures market...my electric bill this winter was 400 dollars a month for three months...it was higher in 2001, I had one bill that was 500 bucks, but i live where we have a cooperative it is higher than the actual producers cost to the consumer..

No such thing as supply and demand. It's fixed.
 
supply and demand sets prices also......just think what we would pay if it was in the futures market...my electric bill this winter was 400 dollars a month for three months...it was higher in 2001, I had one bill that was 500 bucks, but i live where we have a cooperative it is higher than the actual producers cost to the consumer..

No such thing as supply and demand. It's fixed.


What is fixed? The supply or the demand??
 
Utilities are in a unique position in the economy. Because of the need for extensive infrastructure it is not practicable to have, say four competing natural gas suppliers or water providers or electricity providers. To make it work properly, each of those providers would have to have duplicate infrastructure in place to your house, which would be an undue cost burden on them, and would reek havoc with our neighborhoods.

State Public Utility Commissions have tried various schemes to create quasi-competition among utility providers, with limited success.

But basically the deal is as follows: Since it is not possible to have multiple providers, the states and localities hold an initial competition to award the utility rights to a given company. That company then basically has a MONOPOLY to provide that utility in the geographical area that is awarded. Then once that company has the rights, they have to have their rates approved by the PUC, and there are usually time limitations on how soon they can request rate increases in the future. When they request a rate increase they have to convince the PUC that it is justified by unavoidable higher costs, as opposed to inefficiencies, mistakes by utility management, or simply adding profit. The system isn't perfect, but in most cases the utilities are reasonably restrained.

There are times when it appears the ratepayers are getting screwed. In Western Pennsylvania when all the steel mills shut down, the utilities lost half of their revenues and the remaining ratepayers (i.e., US) had to pay increased rates to support the infrastructure that was in place to feed the steel mills and other industrial customers.

It is NO SURPRISE WHATSOEVER that water rates in Arizona are going up. Have you noticed that Arizona is a fucking desert? The water table is dropping by the minute because the land cannot sustain the existing population. Therefore the water utility has to take ever-more extraordinary measures to ensure an adequate water supply, even while the citizens are (generally) taking extraordinary measures not to waste water (no watering lawns, high-use businesses recapturing and treating their own gray water, etc).

Supply and demand generally has nothing to do with utility rates. Or in any other monopoly situation, whether real or contrived by government.
 
Welcome to the World of Government dictates, rules, laws, and regulations.

This is just the beginning. Prices are going be repressive, forever.
 
Obama promised that he would help force energy prices to rise and bankrupt coal plants in the process. If anyone believes that fining energy companies for "emissions" won't force a rise in energy prices then that person's an imbecile.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-aLcbr63ME]OBAMA WILL BANKRUPT THE COAL INDUSTRY Biden: No Coal !!! - YouTube[/ame]
 
Utilities are in a unique position in the economy. Because of the need for extensive infrastructure it is not practicable to have, say four competing natural gas suppliers or water providers or electricity providers. To make it work properly, each of those providers would have to have duplicate infrastructure in place to your house, which would be an undue cost burden on them, and would reek havoc with our neighborhoods.

State Public Utility Commissions have tried various schemes to create quasi-competition among utility providers, with limited success.

But basically the deal is as follows: Since it is not possible to have multiple providers, the states and localities hold an initial competition to award the utility rights to a given company. That company then basically has a MONOPOLY to provide that utility in the geographical area that is awarded. Then once that company has the rights, they have to have their rates approved by the PUC, and there are usually time limitations on how soon they can request rate increases in the future. When they request a rate increase they have to convince the PUC that it is justified by unavoidable higher costs, as opposed to inefficiencies, mistakes by utility management, or simply adding profit. The system isn't perfect, but in most cases the utilities are reasonably restrained.

There are times when it appears the ratepayers are getting screwed. In Western Pennsylvania when all the steel mills shut down, the utilities lost half of their revenues and the remaining ratepayers (i.e., US) had to pay increased rates to support the infrastructure that was in place to feed the steel mills and other industrial customers.

It is NO SURPRISE WHATSOEVER that water rates in Arizona are going up. Have you noticed that Arizona is a fucking desert? The water table is dropping by the minute because the land cannot sustain the existing population. Therefore the water utility has to take ever-more extraordinary measures to ensure an adequate water supply, even while the citizens are (generally) taking extraordinary measures not to waste water (no watering lawns, high-use businesses recapturing and treating their own gray water, etc).

Supply and demand generally has nothing to do with utility rates. Or in any other monopoly situation, whether real or contrived by government.

Which is why ALL UTILITY MONOPOLIES SHOULD BE NON-PROFIT, OR NOT-FOR-PROFIT!
 
Obama promised that he would help force energy prices to rise and bankrupt coal plants in the process. If anyone believes that fining energy companies for "emissions" won't force a rise in energy prices then that person's an imbecile.

The drop in coal use has to do with the drop in natural gas prices which are part of the commodities fix.
 
Utility Rates Skyrocket - Is this inflation for printing all that money? Are we paying for all those empty homes without service? Is this to meet federally mandated clean water standards?

Anthem, Arizona to raise water & sewer rates by 91% - http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/04/12/20100412phxwater0412.html

And the list goes on.
Do you realize your article about the rates going up in Anthem is from 2010, and the proposal first came in 2009? It was proposed to pay for a 141 million dollar wastewater system. How exactly is that proposal from 2009 tied to printing money?

Better to look at a macro level than cherry picked headlines, some from 4-5 years ago.

Try here: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2013/world/the-price-of-water-2013-up-nearly-7-percent-in-last-year-in-30-major-u-s-cities-25-percent-rise-since-2010/
Water prices in 30 major U.S. cities again grew at a pace faster than inflation, according to Circle of Blue’s annual survey of water rates for single-family residential customers. Water prices increased an average of 6.7 percent in these metropolitan areas, a slower rate than in recent years but well above the 2.1 percent increase in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for 2012. The median increase in water prices was 6.2 percent.

A pretty good rates increase to be sure, but nothing like the fantastic 91% and 50% numbers in your article.
 

Forum List

Back
Top