Get Energized: News You Can Use
“Deregulation: Where We’ve Been and Where We
Should be Going”
Opening Remarks
of
Ratepayer Advocate Seema M. Singh
Monroe Township, N.J.
Good morning distinguished guests, panelists, elected officials, colleagues, friends, ladies and gentlemen, and fellow New Jersey ratepayers.
In the two years that Governor James E. McGreevey has been in office, he has fulfilled one of his most important campaign promises – to change the way we do business in New Jersey by making government more efficient.
A prime example of that accomplishment is a major subject of this conference. Governor McGreevey has made New Jersey a national leader in the development of renewable energy, clean energy, and energy efficiencies. New Jersey now has one of the most aggressive funding mechanisms for promoting renewable energy.
Earlier this year, Governor McGreevey signed legislation that will make it easier for local governments and groups to form power-buying pools to reduce their energy costs. We will hear more about the Governor’s reform of energy aggregation shortly.
The McGreevey Administration is committed to ensuring that there are sufficient energy assistance programs available to those in our state who need help with their energy bills. This Administration does not want to abandon people to the terrible choice of heat or eat that we heard about during past winters.
As you will learn from our discussions this morning, through the leadership of Governor McGreevey, BPU President Jeanne Fox and the Ratepayer Advocate – with the support of many of the organizations represented here -- have worked to establish a permanent Universal Service Program that will provide direct financial assistance to those in need. We will hear more during today’s conference about some other very good financial assistance programs available, such as Lifeline, LIHEAP and NJ SHARES.
Before we begin our very exciting program, it is my honor to open our conference with a message from Governor McGreevey.
This conference is a direct result of the Governor’s leadership in promoting conservation.
I would like to thank all of you for taking time to attend today and for your interest in energy conservation and aggregation. We hope the time you are investing here to Get Energized will enable you to learn how to reduce your energy consumption and lower your utility bills, without sacrificing your standards of living.
Please allow me to take a few moments to recognize some of our guests.
I also want to mention that perhaps our most distinguished guests today are a number of private citizens who have come here on their own to find out about energy conservation. These individual ratepayers who are with us today are our most important constituents.
Wherever I travel in New Jersey, I hear the question: Where is energy policy going in New Jersey?
It is no surprise to
most of us gathered here that the benefits of energy deregulation have not
flowed to New Jersey’s residential and small commercial ratepayers.
Four years after enactment of the Electric Discount
and Energy Competition Act, the well-intentioned goals of the legislation --
lower prices through customer choice -- have not materialized.
In fact, the last few months have seen increases in both electric and
natural gas prices for consumers here in New Jersey.
As we meet here today, we have neither lower prices nor competition for
residential and small business customers.
On the electric side, there is currently just one
third-party energy supplier -- Green
Mountain Power -- offering residential consumers a competitive
alternative to their local electric utility.
On the natural gas side, things are a little
better, but not much. There are only a few third party-natural gas suppliers
offering rates to residential customers. They
include Total Gas & Electric;
ECONnergy Energy Co.; Power Choice; Woodruff Energy.
However, industrial and large commercial customers
have been able to obtain the benefits of this law. These large customers have choice. They have been able to significantly reduce their energy
supply costs. They purchase
their energy in amounts that give them the economics that result from large
standing orders.
The large energy consumers who are taking advantage
of deregulation are, on the county level, the Monmouth
County Reclamation Center, Brookdale Community College, and the Monmouth County
Court House.
Constellation
Energy is supplying power to over 70 New Jersey state agencies, including jails,
trains, and colleges. South Jersey
Port Corporation in Camden recently switched to Select Energy.
Yet, I believe that a competitive energy market will eventually emerge for residential and small business consumers. What is the basis for this optimism? It is not just that I am an optimist by nature. Please remember that next year is the 20th anniversary of the breakup of Ma Bell. That’s just about how long it took for competition, consumer choice and a wide array of advanced technologies to emerge in the telecommunications market. In respect to energy, we are only in year five of a restructured industry that had been a regulated monopoly for 100 years. We have a long way to go.
Although I am hopeful that a robust market will develop in the not too distant future, something needs to be done NOW to help small commercial and residential customers address spiraling energy costs. With the recently approved rate increases for our state’s four electric utilities as well as the rising costs of natural gas, consumers need to take proactive steps to reduce their energy bills.
What can we do – that is within our control -- to meet the challenge of rising energy prices? One answer is conservation; another is aggregation.
That is why I am launching today a comprehensive, statewide energy conservation and aggregation effort. I will go to each county and every legislative district where invited to meet with you to advocate energy conservation and aggregation programs to help ratepayers deal with rising energy costs.
Right now, conservation and aggregation are the
only realistic alternatives to rising energy costs for residential ratepayers
and small business customers.
To launch this effort, we provided each of you with a copy of our newly produced Ratepayer Advocate’s Consumer Conservation Handbook. We hope you find it useful and easy to use. We specifically included many money-saving conservation tips that are inexpensive to implement. In fact, many cost nothing at all. The more these suggestions you adopt, the more you can save.
The Handbook will be of tremendous financial benefit to our fellow ratepayers, particularly those who are low-income or living on fixed incomes. More about our conservation handbook in a moment.
As the price of energy continues to increase, energy bills are no longer just a financial burden for low- or fixed-income and financially distressed consumers. Rising energy bills are now also affecting middle-income families because a greater portion of their household income is used for energy costs. This impact on household income is becoming larger and larger for a greater number of our state’s residents.
As we found out from the blackout over the Fourth of July weekend down at the Jersey shore and again on a much larger scale on August 14th in the eastern United States, not only is electricity vital to maintain a minimally safe and comfortable standard of living but is also crucial to our hopes for economic prosperity for all.
While government, regulators, and the utilities grapple with these significant issues, average citizens do not have to wait for solutions from above. We can start taking immediate action as individuals.
Today, we have brought together respected experts
to inform consumers of things they can do – on their own - to help them better
manage their energy costs through conservation and aggregation.
To manage a problem, you need first to be able to
measure it. The first step in conservation is to be able to read your
electric and gas bills. And
Felicia Thomas-Friel, the managing attorney for natural gas at the Ratepayer
Advocate, will show you how to do that.
I would like to address an issue of deep concern to
me. In my almost two years as New
Jersey’s Ratepayer Advocate, I have heard hundreds of complaints regarding
affordable utility services.
In the recent past, the issue of affordable utility rates was routinely glossed over and given little attention because those who could have made a difference did not want to acknowledge a segment of our society that was looked down upon – those who were not fortunate enough to make a living to meet all of life’s basic needs. To provide food, shelter, clothing, a warm home on a winter’s night or keeping the lights on so their children could do their homework.
There is no question that energy is a necessity of life. Electricity is needed to light one’s home or business, run air conditioning and power motors and appliances to conduct normal everyday life. Likewise, natural gas is needed to heat homes and offices and to operate hot water heaters. Electricity and natural gas are essential to the health and welfare and, in some circumstances, the very lives of New Jersey’s residents.
Let me be absolutely clear about one thing: the
McGreevey Administration is committed to ensuring that there are sufficient
assistance programs available to those less fortunate in our state.
We will hear about these programs, such as the Universal Service Program,
Lifeline, LIHEAP and NJ SHARES.
In the panel discussion led by Deputy Director
Andrew Dembia, you will hear from our panelists Marilyn Askin, president of AARP
in New Jersey, and Clarice Sabree-Sylla of the Department of Community Affairs,
and Robert Adams of the National Association for State Community Service
Programs, about the financial assistance programs available on the state and
federal levels. There are
certain requirements that must be met to obtain assistance from these programs.
When you return to your communities and to your organizations, I hope you
bring all of this valuable information with you to share with many others.
If you hear about people in need who are struggling to pay their utility bills or who have lost their utility service, I want to hear about it. Please – immediately contact my office and the Board of Public Utilities.
Many of the conservation tips in our Consumer Conservation Handbook can be done right away. In fact, when you get home, go room-to-room with our handbook tonight and make notes about what you can do right way. We have plenty of ‘To Do’ lists in the handbook with boxes you can check off. This way you’ll be prepared when you wake up tomorrow morning to start conserving energy. We planned our conference for a Friday because we knew you’d want to get started first thing Saturday morning. You have the whole weekend to get it done.
Mel Hall Crawford of the Consumer Federation of
America and Fred Lynk of PSE&G, will provide information on available
conservation programs.
The Ratepayer Advocate’s emphasis on what individual consumers can start doing on their own to conserve energy dovetails with the efforts by the McGreevey Administration and the BPU to increase the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency. President Fox will outline recent BPU initiatives for Clean Energy and available customer assistance in a few moments.
As part of our theme of giving you news you can
use, we will also hear about what consumers can do as a community to reduce
energy costs. We will get an update
on the significant changes signed into law by Governor McGreevey earlier this
year to improve the aggregation of power buying.
We are releasing today our new Manual
for New Jersey Government Energy Aggregators.
This guide, the product of considerable amount of work by the staff of
the Ratepayer Advocate, includes the latest information on how to aggregate.
We have assembled for our panel, which will be led by Ami Morita, the
managing attorney for electric at the Ratepayer Advocate, includes Assemblyman
Burzichelli, the author of the EDECA’s revised aggregation provisions, and New
Jersey Resources CEO and Chairman Larry Downes, to talk about aggregation.
Joel Shain of the League of Municipalities will also share views of
aggregation with us.
Aggregation
is taking place in New Jersey and it is resulting in lower energy bills.
The chemical industry recently formed a power buying pool for its
members. About 400 public school
districts – about two-thirds of all school districts in the state – have
aggregated to reduce their energy costs. Our
panelists will give you more information on this very viable solution to rising
energy costs.
Conservation does not mean you have to sacrifice your family’s life-style or your personal comfort. You don’t have to sit in the dark, shivering in winter or sweltering in the summer.
It does mean, however, that you have to make
choices and take individual action. My
immediate hope is that our conservation handbook will enable many consumers to
reduce energy consumption and lower their utility bills.
Some have dismissed energy conservation as just making people feel better
about themselves. Well, maybe
they’re right. When I can write a
check each month to my utility for less than I wrote it before, then I will feel
a whole lot better.
But there are long-term benefits to be realized.
Reduced energy consumption through conservation can ease the burden on
power providers – particularly during peak demand.
The electricity and natural gas on the spot market during peak usage
periods are the most expensive power, conservation can reduce the costs that are
passed directly through to the consumer.
Conservation could also potentially provide a
critical buffer between uninterrupted service and disrupted service during those
peak periods. Think of conservation as not just saving energy or
reducing consumption. Start
thinking of conservation as an inexhaustible source of energy – energy that is
not demanded or consumed. Energy
that does not have to be generated or distributed.
Energy that remains available for future needs.
In addition to saving money by reducing energy consumption, the second benefit of conservation is in the way we think about energy. Conservation can help change people’s attitudes toward energy generation and consumption.
Just as people discovered that recycling is an easy
way to save money while also benefiting the environment, so they will find out
that a dedicated program of energy conservation accomplishes these same
worthwhile goals. Green is not just
the color for the environmental movement. Green
is also the color of money. Conservation
saves both.
As people realize the benefits of conservation, we
will be bringing about a critically needed societal change in the public’s
attitude. There will be increased acceptance and support for more
sophisticated and advanced strategies, including aggregation as well as
renewable energy and energy efficiency, which Jeanne Fox is spearheading.
If we are to meet the goal of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, then
we need to enhance our consumer education effort.
And I believe that is what we are doing here today. Savings through conservation is a very effective consumer education message that supports our overall efforts to meet our comprehensive energy goals. We must get the word out to ALL consumers that the power is in their hands to change our energy policies. With ever-increasing energy costs - now is the time for consumers to take action.
And as always my office stands ready to assist you in any way we can regarding utility services. Contact my office, and we will meet with your organization, your community, and your group to continue our consumer education efforts about conservation and aggregation.