dagblog - Comments for "Further Results are in on Gov. Mario Cuomo's Government-Run Utility "Solution""

It was a legislated change,

artappraiser — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 07:48:15 +0000

In reply to As a resident of NYC for most

It was a legislated change, offering choice and competition to consumers as to their supplier of electricity and/or gas. Happened like 10 years ago.

One of the choices was (and still is,) to do nothing and let ConEd continue to sell the actual electricity and gas to you as well as charge you for the delivery system/services.

It was similar to theory in what happened when MaBell was broken up for telephone charges. One company still owns the infrastructure, but you now could get your local and your long distance service from other companies if you wanted. (Except that's a case of the competitors subcontracting from whoever has the infrastructure, and the ConEd case is not. The latter was instead separating two distinct purchases: one a commodity, the other a service.)

Most people ended up signing up with another supplier because there were a lot of companies hungry to compete and offer lower prices; many had salesmen come door to door to single family homes, give presentations, analyze your usage from bills, tell you how much they could save you, etc.

I must admit that this has worked out fine, I've seen few complaints, because, just like with telephone plans, if you have time to research the best company and price for you, you can save money. But you still have the benefit of the infrastructure and service with a regulated monopoly, ConEd. And knowing the charges individually for the commodities, you can even compare with wholesale in the commodity markets, follow what the markups are, if you have interest.

And for some reason, ConEd just didn't care about competing on price/wasn't interested in competing for that business, and is happy with the supply job. It's almost more like they'd rather you not bother them with getting the actual gas and electricity for you, and will charge you extra if you want them to do it.

The charges come together on one bill, it just tells you which company is billing you, so one of the services is that ConEd acts as a collector for the various gas & electricity suppliers.

I should point out that for us, the fees ConEd charges for delivery seem to often cost as much as the gas and electricity itself, so maybe there's the clue!

On the phone landline issue, there was one downside that we learned in the days after 9/11. Verizon owns the telephone landlines here. When the lines went dead erratically in lots of areas, they decided it was only right to fix the lines of their own customers first, and anyone with a competing subcontractor came second. So for example, if AT&T was your carrier, you had to wait until all those who choose Verizon for a carrier were repaired first.

But I can't see that being much of an issue with ConEd, because they really don't seem to want to handle buying and reselling electricity and gas! Really, they don't seem to care a wit who you buy it from.

And honestly, in the end, they did end up performing the best of the big companies in the area with this mess. Though there was lot to complain about, it's ended up pretty clear that they performed the best. (The Rockaways and nearby parts of Queens NYC that had the worst problems are serviced by LIPA, not ConEd; they are adjacent to the Long Island counties and somehow were made part of that utility district even though part of NYC.)

I do not know if this is the same with NJ, I just know about NY.

As a resident of NYC for most

MrSmith1 — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 04:18:50 +0000

In reply to I really hate it when

As a resident of NYC for most of my adult life, I remember being surprised a few years back to discover that Con Edison (aka Con Ed) was no longer in the Electricity business. They are in the Electricity delivery business. In other words, they are merely electricity pimps. Why did they get out of the electricity providing business? Their shareholders thought it was not making them a big enough profit. Which naturally raises the question, why has a public utility been turned into a money-making enterprise? I don't want essential services like electricity privatized. But did anyone ask me? Nope.

I really hate it when

EmmaZahn — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:09:46 +0000

In reply to Further Results are in on Gov. Mario Cuomo's Government-Run Utility "Solution"

I really hate it when patronage appointments discredit public agencies. It is also discouraging to see the word 'privatization' usedas a possible remedy to the dysfunction that results.

Private companies providing public utilities can be equally dysfunctional but even when they are not there are other concerns. Recently our biggest private utility wanted to build new facilities for future population growth but did not want to do it the usual capitalist way by either borrowing the necessary funds or selling equity.

Instead they decided a rate increase on present customers was the way to go but knew the state public service commission could/would not approve it so they strong-armed the entire state legislature which passed a new law to allow it. Now they are building a new power plant with public funds that they will own outright. The current rate pre-payers will get no direct return on their investment. What a deal.

On Cuomo fils, from the

artappraiser — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:08:18 +0000

In reply to Further Results are in on Gov. Mario Cuomo's Government-Run Utility "Solution"

On Cuomo fils, from the article:

Senior officials, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have excoriated the authority, but in the past, they have paid little attention to its management.

The authority has not had a permanent chief executive for two years. Five spots on the 15-member board are vacant, 3 of which are Mr. Cuomo’s to fill.

The authority’s chairman, Howard E. Steinberg, has stayed on past an expired term. He was originally appointed by Gov. George E. Pataki, who left office almost six years ago.

Trying to fend off attacks on his oversight of the Long Island Power Authority, Mr. Cuomo on Tuesday established a high-level panel, called a Moreland Commission, to investigate how utilities across New York, including the authority, handled Hurricane Sandy and other storms.

He also revived a proposal that he made in his 2010 campaign to combine the authority with other state energy agencies, but has not ruled out privatizing the authority.

“I don’t believe you can fix it,” he said. “I believe it has to be overhauled and you need a new system.”