Consumers Council of Missouri (CCM) condemns the 22-11 passage of Senate Substitute #2 for Senate Bill 4 (SB4) on Monday, February 24, as out of touch with the high energy burden already being experienced by many utility customers. According to calculations from utility rate experts, SB 4 will add more than $1,115 per year in utility rate increases to Missouri households captive to monopoly companies.

“Energy burden in Missouri disproportionally affects people who are Black and Brown and people who have low income,” said CCM executive director Sandra Padgett. “The Senate’s approval of SB 4 is not only shocking but also endangers the health of Missourians who are struggling to make ends meet.”

(Note: For more on “energy burden in Missouri”, go to THIS LINK.)

SB 4 contains multiple provisions that advantage monopoly investor-owned utility companies at the expense of rate payers. Among these dangerous policy changes are:

• Construction Work in Progress (CWIP), forcing Missourians to pay for utility facilities while they are being built, an idea that we voted down 2-1 in 1976;
• Future Test Year, a change that would base water and gas bills on utility company guesses about future expenditures, rather than actual, audited costs. 
• Plant-in-Service Accounting (PISA), which tracks only selected increasing costs, while ignoring favorable changes in other costs and revenue growth between test years, factors that could lower our rates.

CCM and a diverse set of opponents of SB 4 now turn their attention toward stopping this legislation on the House side of the Capitol Building. Jeanette Mott Oxford, Board president of CCM, said, “Utility customers need to join us in closely monitoring the House debate on SB 4. There has been a blurring of ethical guidelines expected around a 133-page complicated bill that would have such far-reaching consequences on household budgets.”

Oxford cited the following as examples of ethical concerns:

• Historically the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) has remained neutral on utility reform legislation, but PSC Chair Kayla Hahn is actively lobbying for CWIP and other parts of this legislation; and
• Contradictory information has been shared with legislators on important issues like whether nuclear plants are covered by the CWIP language. SB sponsor Sen. Mike Cierpiot (R-Lee’s Summit) says that CWIP will only be used for gas-powered plants. Sen. Tracy McCreery (D-Olivette) says, however, that the Integrated Resource Planning part of SB4 does allow CWIP for nuclear plants.