La Conner Weekly News

Guest Opinion –
PSE Sale: A financial and environmental disaster
By Ed Jenkins

There is an issue that few know about, and those who do seem unaware of the potential results: The heart of the matter is the selling of Washington State resources to a foreign entity and losing control forever.
Puget Sound Energy is well on the way to being sold to a foreign consortium. The utility has assured us the sale is in the best interest of its customers, but let’s look at the facts: For many years Puget Sound Energy has been cutting costs, mainly through outsourcing. We saw the result of that in the huge power outages.

Puget Sound Energy has been putting almost every cent it earns – and in some years even more than it earns – into stock dividends to keep the price up. This has resulted in a declining infrastructure, and a junk bond rating. Now along comes Macquarie Group, a Canadian and Australian consortium of investors that wants to buy the utility for 25 percent more than it’s worth.
Macquarie has promised many things, among them putting $5 billion into Puget Sound Energy.
Strangely, Macquarie has put nothing into writing – just //VERBAL?// promises.

It will not even guarantee to that it will do business in Washington for more than five years.
Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna has come out against this deal and said it could result in an immediate rate increase of 6 to 12 percent on top of the 12 percent Puget Sound Energy is asking for immediately. Macquarie’s business practices world-wide, all public record, casts a very bad light on what could be in store for all of us.

Many financial news sources and forecasters have big concerns about Macquarie is going deeply into debt to finance their deals. Also, the company has been accused of Enron-type practices in their native Australia.
You can read the reports yourself. Email me at localpower@live.com for a list of important links. Also look at www.savepse.org.
Why is Macquarie willing to pay a huge 25 percent premium for a company that is so poorly run? The only reason I can fathom is the natural resources Puget Sound Energy owns.

Along with the hydro are the millions of acre-feet of water rights that come with the dams and that would be under the control of Macquarie, a foreign company. What a disturbing idea! Imagine if Puget Sound Energy’s electricity generating side was split into a separate foreign company. The new entity could then sell power back at whatever price it dictates. Isn’t the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission watching out for us? You would think so; but the reality is that despite thousands of calls from people outraged and opposed to the sale it seems that they will ignore our concerns and rubber stamp the deal. What is an alternative?
Skagit County already has a Public Utility District for water. It could easily add electricity. Public Utility Districts are locally owned, locally operated and buy power at cost.

Whidbey Island is forming a Public Utility District to serve its residents. In Skagit County, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission should offer a Public Utility District as an alternative to Puget Sound Energy and in rebuke of the monopoly privilege it has been granted.

UPFONT: The writer is a Clinton resident working to form a Whidbey Public Utility District and to prevent the takeover of Puget Sound Energy by the Macquarie Group.