Bill Would Block Public Access to Energy Credit Prices - WOWK-TV

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CHARLESTON -- The public wouldn’t have access to government information about how much power companies are paying to purchase credits to offset their carbon emissions under a bill currently before the Legislature.

House Bill 408 is one of a handful of bills state lawmakers are taking up during the special session, which began Tuesday. It would make several revisions to the state’s Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, a state law passed earlier this year requiring large utilities to get 25 percent their energy from alternative or renewable sources by 2025.

Among the provisions is a requirement that th state Public Service Commission maintain a registry of energy credits bought, traded and sold in West Virginia. But after several hours of negotiations involving industry officials and representatives from the governor’s office, an amendment to HB 408 was drafted allowing the PSC to instead use an independent and industry-recognized system to track credits.

The amendment also prevented public disclosure of pricing information collected under the system, essentially exempting the information from Freedom of Information requests.

Not all lawmakers were happy with the changes when the proposed amendments hit the House Government Organization Committee. Delegate Mike Manypenny, D-Taylor, unsuccessfully tried to convince fellow committee members to change the amendment to exclude the provision blocking public access to credit prices.

“I think a lot of us don’t feel comfortable hiding anything from the public, and I think the FOIA exemption does just that,” Manypenny said.

Matt Turner, spokesman for Gov. Joe Manchin, said the provision was included because the state was planning to rely on PJM Interconnection to track the credits, and PJM doesn’t include purchase prices for individual transactions. Relying on PJM means there will be no cost to the state, he said.

PJM is a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity and manages the electric grid in 13 states and Washington, D.C.

Another provision in the bill would strike language in existing law preventing companies from using federally mandated reductions in emissions as credit for complying with the state’s alternative energy portfolio. Turner said that would prevent utilities from worrying about meeting two sets of efficiency standards that would stack on top of one another.

The bill also gives the PSC the authority to broaden the types of advanced coal technology that would count as alternative energy.

If HB 408 passes the House Friday, the bill must win Senate approval.

how stupid do the lawmakers think we are? this is your cap and trade bill, signed, sealed, and delivered. thanks to democrats and obama. there goes your electric bill, and any other commoditiy you can think of. better be looking for another job miners. keep voting the democrats in and you will soon be under marxis rule, alnost there now. global warming is a farce, its a giant ponzi scheme that will madoff look like mickey mouse. its all about the money. wake up people.

I don't see why they can't have it both ways. Just because the regional PJM credit tracking system doesn't record and report prices, doesn't mean that the PSC can't require the utilities to report the prices the utilities paid. And if they're worried bout giving away competitive information, just require the utilities to report the total cost paid for any given period of time divided by the total number of credit purchased in that period, and you've got the average price paid. That should be good enough.

If we dont know the prices, I dont think that off sets will matter. We need to know whom is playing by the rules and whom is not. This could go the same way as selling off sets many times. This happened in Germany, France, and the U.K., the same off sets were sold four times. The power companies lost big money. But they could also lie and say they have more then they do. Its up to us to be police on this also.

“I think a lot of us don’t feel comfortable hiding anything from the public, and I think the FOIA exemption does just that,” Manypenny said. Good for him! He is exactly right. Once upon a time, Mikhail Gorbachev called this 'glasnost'. To the extent that it was accepted, quite a few apparatchiks lost power. Perhaps that's what the other House Government Organization Committee members are afraid of.

Agreed, We need to be involved, not left out of the process. We are the People. We Elect, did we make a mistake? (maybe) This is information, we have the right to know, and I for one, who votes, will consider the actions of the elected officials. Is it only a few that are able to make decisions? In this case, (yes) they did not ask me, or any other voters. If you speak for us ask us?

Jerks!! The coal companies,energy companies etc. are nothing but a bunch of low-life crooks..not the workers but the owners and operators. Wake up WV..Don Blankenship and the rest are not on your side and Obama is not the enemy. Remember the company store,company scrip and company housing??? Is that what you want again???

'KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL'. THESE 'REPRESENTATIVES'?? ARE AT IT AGAIN,THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEY WORK FOR THE RESIDENTS AND TAXPAYERS. BLOCKING PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLIC INFO IS A MADOFF SCAM!!! DOCUMENT AND REMEMBER THEIR ANTICS THE NEXT ELECTION..

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