.
"Mr. Binz assured Xcel that it could pass on to rate payers,
with a guaranteed return, whatever capital investment was necessary to
replace the working coal assets."
7/29/13,
"Ron Binz's Rules for Radicals," Wall St. Journal Editorial
"
President Obama's rule-makers have amped up major regulators like the
Environmental Protection Agency
and now they're turning to more obscure
outposts. Take the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which
oversees electric transmission and interstate pipelines. Or used to.
Now FERC has deputized itself as a Wall Street regulator. This month the commission squeezed
Barclays
BARC.LN -0.50%
for $435 million for alleged energy-market manipulation, the largest
penalty in FERC's history and more than all of its previous fines
combined. Another $410 million fine will soon hit J.P. Morgan, according
to a Journal scoop.
Yet that will
seem minor if the next FERC chairman is Ron Binz—the most important and
radical Obama nominee you've never heard of. An electric regulator in
Colorado from 2007 to 2011, Mr. Binz is the latest Presidential nominee
who doesn't understand the difference between making laws and enforcing
them.
No, that's unfair. Mr. Binz doesn't care about the difference. In a
recent interview with the Association for the Demand Response and Smart
Grid trade group, reflecting on the lessons of his Colorado job,
he
nodded at the "judicial role" of regulators. But then he mused about
their
"legislative role" too: "I saw the commission not simply as an
umpire calling balls and strikes, but also as a leader on policy
implementation."
This philosophy is especially troubling for a commission like FERC,
which is supposed to be an even-handed arbitrator independent of the
executive branch. FERC's narrow legal obligations include protecting the
affordability and reliability of the U.S. power supply and electric
grid—goals that are in more than a little tension with Mr. Obama's
anticarbon program. The law is a nuisance when you think you're saving
the planet.
Mr. Binz was supposed to fill a similarly neutral role in Colorado
when then Democratic Governor Bill Ritter appointed him chairman of the
public utility commission. Prior to his tenure, that job consisted of
consumer protection and ensuring that electricity was low-cost.
But Mr.
Ritter wanted to do something about climate change, and Mr. Binz told
the Denver Post in 2007 (using the third person) that "There's an
expectation that the chair will carry a banner for the new
administration."
Mr. Binz became the point man for legislation that would all but
force several Denver-area coal plants to convert to natural gas though
they weren't slated for retirement. He even negotiated terms directly
with the Colorado power company that it was his responsibility to
regulate,
Xcel Energy
XEL +0.40%
.
Mr. Binz assured Xcel that it could pass on to rate payers,
with a guaranteed return, whatever capital investment was necessary to
replace the working coal assets. Documents obtained by the
Colorado Mining Association under a state
open records law show that
Mr. Binz promised "extraordinary cost
recovery." In a March 2010 email, he wrote that "I think it's more
nearly a self-fulfilling prophecy—the larger (and faster) the cost
burden in the Company's approved plan, the stronger the
basis for the
Commission to adopt extraordinary regulatory measures to assure the
Company's financial health."
In other words, the more Xcel spent in the name of the Ritter-Binz
political agenda, the more Mr. Binz would use the discretion he gave
himself in the law he wrote to give Xcel favorable treatment. When
Stockholm syndrome set in with Xcel and the company took the deal, Mr.
Binz exulted that "the eagle has landed."
It was great for everyone
except the consumers involuntarily funding it.
Mr. Binz would almost certainly commander the same extralegal powers
at FERC to perpetrate similar abuses, regardless of congressional
intent. "Regulation needs to shift from its backward-looking focus on
costs, to a forward-looking emphasis on value and desired societal
outcomes," he says.
In a 2012 report for the consultant Ceres subtitled
"What Every State Regulator Needs to Know," Mr. Binz added that "Both
regulators and utilities need to evolve beyond historical practice,"
and
he encouraged utility commissioners to expand their mandates to include
his subjective conception of the "broad societal benefits" of low- or
no-carbon power.
FERC was a sleepy regulator until the Obama Presidency, but it has
statutory powers that could be turned into anticarbon weapons, such as
the authority to impose fines of up $1 million per day for what it
claims are violations. They also include the power to block energy
mergers and the construction of terminals, pipelines and transmission.
You can bet that Mr. Binz will be creative and political, and don't
be so sure his only target is coal. At an Edison Foundation panel this
March,
he called natural gas a "dead end" technology because "on the
carbon basis, you hit the wall in 2035 or so." He added that
"We have to
do better on carbon than even natural gas will allow us to do." This is
unusual in that the greens usually pretend to support gas to make
outlawing coal seem more reasonable. Mr. Binz let the mask slip.
Mr. Binz is part of the White House's damn-the-voters strategy of
imposing through regulation what Congress won't pass, and now he wants
to glide into FERC without protest. But the Senate's advice-and-consent
role is especially important because
a FERC chairman has broad powers,
much like a CEO's, even if other commissioners dissent—and the chairman
is not supposed to carry Mr. Obama's banner. Mr. Binz's record and
methods deserve far more scrutiny than they have received."
================================
Comment:
The problem is that the GOP agrees with Obama's 'damn the voter strategy.' The American public has no one to protect it from a genocidal executive branch.
================================
3/27/13,
"Is the Republican Party America's Achilles Heel?" American Thinker, Steve McCann
================================
"Obama re-election helped GOP House Speaker Boehner": NPR
12/8/12, "Once Boxed-In, Boehner May Finally Be Master Of The House," NPR, Frank James
=====================================
2/20/13, "As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned," Angelo Codevilla, Forbes
=======================
10/20/11, "The lost decade," Angelo M. Codevilla, Claremont Inst.
"America's current ruling class, the people who lost the War on Terror,
monopolizes the upper reaches of American public life, the ranks of
those who make foreign and domestic policy, including the leadership of
the Republican and Democratic parties. It is more or less homogeneous
socially and intellectually."...
.