Comments about ‘Rocky Mountain Power requests 9.7 percent rate hike’

What if Wal-Mart or Target raised their prices because they needed to expand? The only reason utilities do this is because they can. In a normal business, more customers usually means more profits. Anytime a utility wants to expand, it should be required to present a very detail audit and to prove that they have explored all cost cutting possibilities including reducing executive salaries.

The 'free market' at work.

If it makes anybody feel better... remember our Questar Gas rates when DOWN this year. So maybe the two rate changes will offset each other in your budget.

Guess this means the people with electric cars will be paying more to drive around now. It's only fare. Until we get more wind, solar, hydro and other non fossil fuel sources of electricity... electricity = burning oil, coal, etc, so there's no real difference.

Pagan,

This isn't the free market at work. Utility companies are virtual monopolies in the ares they "serve".

If utilities were government supplied and mandated, we'd see the same type of rate hikes, if not worse. The "free market" in most cases allows for competition, and keeps prices affordable for most people. When there's no competition, companies or government are free to charge whatever they want and people have to pay no matter what.

I'll stay with the free market, thank you very much.

'If utilities were government supplied and mandated, we'd see the same type of rate hikes, if not worse.' - hatchna | 4:55 p.m. Feb. 16, 2012

Your example?

Let's take a look, at the free market:

** 'Wellpoint Drops Coverage For Some Women With Breast Cancer' - By Mary Ellen Egan - Forbes Magazine - 04/23/10

Conservative logic is always...

'or worse.'

Never, a...

solution.

Private companies dont' care about you:

** 'GOP rivals turn Romneys jobs record against him' - By Kasie Hunt - AP - Published by DSnews - 01/09/2012

'A separate AP analysis found that at least 4,000 workers lost their jobs at 45 companies bought by Bain...' article

Which is why we have...

goverment.

""While the price of electricity is still an excellent value, increases are necessary because of the need to comply with increasingly restrictive environmental requirements..."

This is all part of the environmentalists' master plan. Higher energy prices mean that fewer people will be able to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer. More people will likely die from temperature extremes. That will lower the human population and leave more room for the wolves and the birdies - the environmentalists' ultimate goal.

Oh man, I haven't had a laugh like that is some time. Good job Pagan. I needed a good dose of liberal, socialist propaganda.

You actually think government cares about any of us??? That's a laugher. There isn't a single elected official in Washington, including Mr. Obama. Government cares as much if not less than the private sector. They just put on a song and dance to make us think they care. All they want is power and money, and people like you are giving it to them, hand over fist.

The day America becomes what you want it to be is the day that it ceases being America, and the land of the free. I hope that day never comes.

Progressivism, socialism, and communism and liberal logic are never the solution. All they bring is less freedom. And before you start twisting this to a "Bush caused all this, and Obama's just trying to fix it" I don't agree with Mr. Bush either. The republican party and the democrat party are full of self serving progressive power grabbers. Having absolute faith in either side is folly. Almost every politician is a crooked thief, but you only want to talk about Conservatives. If we had true conservatives leading the country, this country wouldn't have a trillion dollar deficit. Government is not the solution. They are slowly (although not as slowly as in the past) bankrupting this country. I hope you're happy with the result, when America becomes the next China.

Business does care about people! People are what business is all about. It is people that a business hires, clients are people. Business is all about learning what people want & providing it to them in the best way possible. Business competition drives better service, better products, lower prices, & faster service. To a business, people are kings. They are everything to a business that is operating in a competitive market. But in a monopolized market (visit the DMV, or the post office) you'll see poor service.

Liberals are so short-sighted & blind they cannot recognize the great benefits that freedom & capitalism & free markets give us. But these freedoms & free markets work best when society is honest. Our society is becoming more course, selfish, dishonest & we are losing our freedoms because we are losing our roots. Hard work, trust in God, honesty, integrity, serving others, morality, are some of the principles that serve as our foundation. These must be strengthened. Believe in God, & work to serve our neighbors & God.

David, I trust in god, but she's too busy picking football games to get caught up in all that flag waving nonsense. I'm not sure if our society is becoming more course, or perhaps coarse, or if our education system has abandoned you, but but the fact is that you fail to see why a single payer system should exist for electricity from supplier to consumer. I believe in god. But she says she doesn't need my servitude. Nor does duke energy or RMP.

They said the recent mortgage suit settlement between the nation's largest banks and most every state, that allowed the banks to get off the hook of most of their robo-signing practice to fraudulently foreclose on mortgagees (the former mortgagees get just $2000 per household, a psaltry sum), it made Warren Buffett, with his large holdings in Wells Fargo and Bank of America about $154 million richer.

As other posters have duly noted, if investors make money on rate payers (utility customers, to make a greater investment in plants to serve a growing number of customers, why don't the likes of Mr Buffett, who owns, I believe, a majority share in PacifiCorp, Rocky Mountain Power's parent company, INVEST their money in expectation of return)?

If rate payers are investing in it, then we should be or become the stockholders! And dividends should be paid to US, NOT them (the 'current' stockholders)!

The PSC, should tell them not that they'll grant them a rate hike, but rather, that they should go "Take a hike!", and get their current, or other investors, to "Pony up" more money to invest in capital equipment. (Won't it be paid for by customers paying rates over time anyway)? Why do rate payers have to foot the bill for capital improvements, while power company stockholders get paid dividends?

Of course, I'll bet that if the rate hike is mostly allowed (and the PSC have seemed to long have been largely 'rubber stampers' of what utilities give them, due to the revolving door between the PSC and utility jobs for certain good little 'lap dogs'), you will see executive pay go up a lot at PaciCorp.

So folks, if you get disconnected, because an additional $7.89 or whatever per month was the straw that broke the camel's back (and, you're the camel), then don't expect the power company to help you. If they get their rate hike, they'll cut off your power and tell you to "take a hike"!

ps The PSC will likely only allow a partial rate hike to PacifiCorp. So then, supposedly, the PSC will not appear so just a bunch of employees for the utilities they 'regulate'. Of course, the rate hike requested will be far above what the utility really needs. This is how the game long has been played. They will give them (the power company) what they want, without giving them (supposedly) all that they want. And just watch, it will be played, IMO, this way, this time, once again!

I don't claim to know what a feasible price for power would actually be; so I don't know if this proposed hike is greed or is an actual need as stated in the article. But, I doubt the majority of the population (including me) knows what goes into actually getting power into our cell phones and laptops. The production and distribution of power is a complicated process. But without electrical power, our society would seize to function. If the lack of funding causes our infrastructure to become weak and vulnerable, then an investment is necessary.

Utah is growing rapidly and the state needs to keep up with the increase in population. If the state skimped on their infrastructure funding and something bad were to happen, people would be saying "why didn't we invest in our power grid" or something along those lines.

This is simply inflation and population growth. Someone has to pay for it...

Too bad RMP doesn't have more price stable energy resources on its system, such as wind, geothermal, and hydro. The prices of those resources aren't going up. They're stable and predictable decades into the future because they don't require price volatile fossil fuels.

What environmentalists want is for the electricity system to be cleaner and price stable. Only renewable energy sources can achieve this dual objective. Fossil fuels cannot.

The cost of everything seems to be increasing in the nearly double digits every year.

Employee wages, if you're one of the lucky people, might go up 3% per year.

The hole is getting deeper folks, and you aren't even digging, Corporate America is doing the digging for you.

Memo to RMP: I will happily pay your rate increase if the top executives also take a pay cut to prove that the increase isn't going to pad their salaries.

Oh, and also feel free to demonstrate that you are attempting to innovate and keep up with the rest of the world. I think the United States might be the last developed nation on earth still to have overhead power lines. Why is that? It must be good for business to have trees destroy power lines every year and leave people in the dark. BURY THEM.

not a huge fan of a rate hike when my own budget is pretty tight. no raises this year. It's been three years in a row now... and add this additional expense, about another 100 bucks a year... I suppose it's just another sign the economy's not doing as well as we'd all hoped.

This response board has a lot of interesting theories about how rates are set. Do some research. First, it is your elected legislature that establishes the parameters regarding what the PSC must approve == all prudently incurred costs. Second, many states in the country "deregulated" the electric utilities. Did the market keep costs down? NO. Their costs doubled. We still have the fifth lowest rates in the country. (second lowest for industrial customers)

Well, let's see. I have worked here for 4 years. My medical insurance has gone up 210%, my gas bill went down last year about 3%, after they raised it 5% the year before. Groceries have gone up about 25%, gasoline has gone up 50%, bus and train to work about 12%, plus sometimes a "surcharge". I have received one pay raise since I have been here - that resulted in a net paycheck increase of a negative $8.50. It is by "shear luck and the grace of god" I still have a roof over my kids head (I am basically homeless since the divorce). Get in line RMP - you can have yours when I get mine.

Lets see, why don't they cut out that moronic advertising what good does that do? that should free up some cash

No! You can survive on a 5% rate hike.

You clearly are not managing the resources very well. Do a better job!

Thanks.

Any Obama fans out there need to stop whining about this little jump in Electricity rates. Remember what Obama promised?.... "Under my plan of cap-and-trade, Electricity rates will neccessarily SKYROCKET"!!!

And you thought that was a GOOD thing... so no whining!

Remember... skyrocketing utility rates are a GOOD thing for the American people. Because until utility rates skyrocket... we won't do what they say and drive electic cars, use wood or windmills for heat, etc, like the granola Obama fans think you should already be doing.

I don't see how electricity rates skyrocketing is a good thing... but some people think it's the best thing that could happen. Go figure.

But remember... this is NOTHING compared to what Obama has planned for the future.

Start saving money for future skyrocketing utility rates now.... or start collecting wood to heat and light your home in the future! Obama IS going to be around for a second term whether you like it or not. And cap-and-trade IS still part of his agenda.