Utility legislation is boring. I know it’s important and it should matter to everyone, but I will be the first to admit that I tune out when I hear a utility bill hit the Senate floor.
The debate is painful, and there is only a handful of smart people who really understand what is going on when it comes to this industry. Public Service Commission Chairwoman Kayla Hahn, Sen. Mike Cierpiot, Rep. Bob Bromley and a few others, but not many more have spent the time to understand how a light comes on.
Like all of you, my hillbilly brain is worried about more important matters… like when are the DeWitts going to end our state’s long-running tragedy and fire Bow Tie and send Marmol packing or why would anyone stay at the Capitol Plaza? These are the taxing issues that keep me up at night.
However, with session in full swing, it seems like the Missouri Senate is poised to subject us all to a little bit of pain as they wrestle with a wide-ranging utility bill.
When Sen. Mike Cierpiot brought up his 94-page bill for debate earlier this month, it was hard for me to get through the proposal’s summary let alone the entire thing (Kelton’s note: he hasn’t read it).
It’s confusing and full of concepts most people outside of the utility industry have never heard of. Thankfully, the Senate floor leader only forced us to listen to the issue for a handful of hours, but with it being so early in session, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a sign of things to come. It feels like this is the year for a utility bill to move forward and make its way to the governor’s desk.
Now, being from West Butler County, I don’t ask for much when it comes to my utility companies: keep my lights and heat on and make sure my water is clean – it’s not nuclear science, except it kinda is.
In Missouri, our utility companies, co-ops and municipal utilities do a good job at this for the most part. So, what’s the big deal with this bill? Why are so many people fired up about it? The more I think about it, the more it started to make sense: more power.
Not Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor power, but more electricity. A big part of Senate Bill 4 is a provision designed to help utility companies like Ameren Missouri and Evergy build more natural gas power plants. As I understand it, these electric companies aren’t just building these plants because they want to, they need to because we are using more electricity than ever before.
Not because more people are charging their Priuses at Starbucks as they read pointless hit pieces from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board, they have the power to take care of those folks and the ones writing on Facebook too.
Businesses and manufacturers require more power today than ever before, including existing businesses and those looking to relocate.
From this hillbilly’s perspective, Missourah needs more power and a lot of it if the state wants to remain a place where manufacturers, tech industries and others want to come and operate. These opportunities represent the potential of billions of dollars of new investment and countless good-paying jobs. If you don’t have the available power, it doesn’t matter if you have a skilled workforce, the right political climate or a winning football team, these companies and manufacturers will cut you from their list quicker than I can pound a Busch Light.
These aren’t just data centers looking to come to Missourah, we are talking about operations the size of the old Noranda plant and bigger – stuff that can change a community for generations. While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about data centers for a bit.
Some may say we shouldn’t build power plants just to support these data centers, that we don’t want them here. To those, I say that’s the biggest piece of BS since the National League adopted the DH. As our everyday lives become more and more dependent on technology, we need these data centers for everything from business applications, entertainment, computing storage and more.
The tech companies that are considering relocating to Missourah need access to these data centers to support their operations. Data centers are a sign of growth, not a drain for our state’s electric companies. It’s also a national security issue, too. Wouldn’t you want your personal information, your pictures of your kids and those 1,000 unread emails on your phone to be housed in a secure data center in Missourah rather than thousands of miles away in China or Russia?
For this hillbilly, I want my stuff protected and stored right here in the Show-Me State, not by some commie on the other side of the world.
Finally, the groups opposing this issue have made me shake my head a bit. I expected the consumer groups and some of the industrials – they are almost always against any major piece of utility legislation – but there have been a couple “conservative” groups that have tried to equate this bill to a tax increase. Taxes are what the government collects, not what I pay my utility company every month.
The last time I checked, Uncle Sam and the power company are two different people. One controls the tax man, and the other can’t do most things without given the green light by the Missouri Public Service Commission. Now I am not going to mention any names, but if some of these groups are serious about eliminating the income tax and slashing personal property taxes, they should want to see more businesses and manufacturers move to Missourah. It’s simple… it you want to increase general revenue without raising taxes get more businesses to move here – even this hillbilly gets it.
While utility legislation is still boring in the eyes of this proud German, I get why it matters. If we want to see more jobs and opportunities come to our state, our utility companies must put steel in the ground and build new power plants to support these opportunities.
If we are serious about cutting taxes, we must find a way to generate more state revenue so we can afford those tax cuts and still provide basic services to those that need it. Let’s not be like Kansas, we can responsibly cut taxes the right way. Thankfully, there are smart people in the Capitol that I know are up to the challenge, but will there be others that listen to the lies and believe this bill is a solution in search of a problem? For the sake of our state’s future, I hope the smart folks win out.
After all, it’s not nuclear science – it’s common sense.
Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.
