Call Your Legislators – Stop Manchin’s Power Line Tax

Ken Ward, Jr., the Charleston Gazette’s excellent reporter, has a new blog called Coal Tattoo.  Here is a link to the blog.  Mr. Ward covers all aspects of the national coal industry, including coal by wire.  He covered the TrAIL PSC process and will no doubt be covering the PATH line.

Here is a post from Coal Tattoo dated February 17 –

What happened to Manchin’s power line tax?

by Ken Ward Jr.

Writing a quick story for the Gazette Web site and our print edition about a recent ruling in the TrAIL power line case  reminded me of something that was clearly missing from Gov. Joe Manchin’s State of the State address last week.

The governor talked a lot about energy, but did not mention one word about his promise to introduce a “transmission tax” on new high-voltage power lines such as TrAIL. The governor had initially announced this idea last May, but repeated his promise in August, just after the Public Service Commission issued its ruling approving TrAIL.

Manchin had said he hoped to use part of the revenue from the tax to offset electricity rate hikes that fund construction of such projects, and to provide new revenue for the state and for counties where the TrAIL line would be located. Manchin even went so far as to warn Allegheny Energy and other utility companies to get behind his plan, or face his opposition to their projects.

But none of that came up last week, when Manchin announced his plans for this legislative session.

I asked Matt Turner, the governor’s communications director, about the transmission tax, and this is what he said:

He still plans to introduce it.

Don’t have a specific date — they’re working on it.

If you have been following the TrAIL case, you will remember that a big reason that the WV PSC approved TrAIL last August was that Governor Manchin carried on extensive back door negotiations with the PSC and Allegheny Energy to generate a long list of “stipulations” that convinced the PSC to approve the line.

As part of his plan to help Allegheny, the Governor included in his stipulations a new tax on big power lines that would help WV get some benefits from TrAIL.  What the Governor never told the public was that this new tax would be included in Allegheny’s rate increases for building the line.  So Allegheny won’t be paying the tax, WE WILL.

Now there is one problem with the Governor’s tax stipulation — he needs the WV Legislature to pass a bill imposing the tax.

The Governor must sneak this bill through the current session or the deal he cooked up with Allegheny last August may be called off.

Call your state senators and delegates and tell them that when Governor Manchin tries to sneak his power line tax through at the end of the current session, they should be alert and should vote against it.

The tax appears to be a tax on the power companies, but we will end up paying it through our electric bills.  Tell your legislator that we do not want these power lines built because they are bad investments that WV ratepayers will be supporting needlessly for the next 50 years.