rssColorado-based electric firm votes to raise rates on New Mexicans
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Over 800,000 New Mexicans will face price hikes in their electric bills after a Colorado-based company and its 44 local co-ops voted 43-1 to raise the rates by 4.5 percent.
Tri-State, which services 1.5 million customers in four states and covers some 200,000 square miles, generates the electricity, while its 44 cooperatives purchase the electricity in bulk for more competitive rates. Twelve of the cooperatives are based in New Mexico.
Kit Carson Electric Co-op, the lone dissenting vote, plans to protest the price increase with the Public Regulation Commission. However, in order for PRC to review a rate hike, two other co-ops must file a protest. Tri-State, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, is raising rates for the first time in three years; a spokesperson for Kit Carson framed the frequency differently, saying on Monday this will be the seventh rate hike in eleven years.
The Taos-based co-op operates in Taos, Colfax and Rio Arriba counties. The majority of the customers serviced by the private non-profit group live in PRC District 3, which is technically without a representative following Commissioner Jerome D. Block stepping down from office after months of inquiry into his illegal use of public funds. He pleaded guilty to two counts in late September.
Gov. Susana Martinez will announce a replacement member soon. The rate hikes are scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2012.
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Comment posted July 14, 2011 @ 5:30 pm
It seems some of my colleagues have intentionally taken a sentence in a letter several colleagues and I sent to the Clinton administration out of context.
This letter requested that the Immigration and Naturalization Service issue guidelines for removal proceedings in the most sympathetic cases. These are cases that involve legal – not illegal – immigrants who committed a single minor crime but have been a law abiding resident ever since.
While this authority is justifiable when used responsibly on a case-by-case basis, it’s clear the Obama Administration plans not to use but to abuse these powers.
In recent years, Congress has defeated amnesty for illegal immigrants several times but this has not stopped President Obama from trying to implement a backdoor amnesty. Over the course of the last year, the Obama administration has ignored the will of Congress and the American people by using executive branch authority to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. If the President gets his way, millions of illegal immigrants will be allowed to legally live and work in the U.S. without a vote of Congress.
That is why I have introduced a bill to prevent the Obama administration from abusing this power. The actions taken by this Administration in the past two years demonstrate that they cannot be trusted to responsibly use executive branch authority.
The Obama administration should not pick and choose which laws it will enforce. Congress must put a halt to this administrative amnesty.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Comment posted July 14, 2011 @ 9:37 pm
And yet you already know that your “HALT Act” will never pass in Congress. Sorry Lamar, but don’t quit your day job.
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