Steve Pomerance

The Camera`s story on Nov. 13 “Judge OKs SmartGrid fees” documented Xcel`s efforts to recover $44-plus million in costs on SmartGridCity. The administrative law judge awarded Xcel a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, which may allow Xcel to keep the millions that they are already collecting from Colorado ratepayers. But as this Thursday`s Camera pointed out, the decision will be reviewed by the Public Utilities Commission. And it may go to court after that. A CPCN is generally required before a project is started. That way we ratepayers are hopefully assured that, at the time of its planning and implementation, the decision is “prudent, in the public interest, and justified by the benefits of the project.” And we are protected from having costs triple, as happened with SGC. The testimony before the judge was pretty damning. The Office of Consumer Counsel pointed out that Xcel was focused on preserving the Boulder franchise: “In deciding to go forward with the origin...

Or if you prefer a community perspective, it could be the “Our Money, Our Free Speech” Act. In my last column, I suggested a law that would require approval by stockholders before a corporation could spend money on political advertising. It seems reasonable that stockholders should be the ones to make this decision, as I suspect that they would rather have the money themselves as dividends than give it to some unknown corporate VP to spend on his or her choice of candidates. I received some positive feedback on the idea, so I thought it might be worth exploring further. This concept is in reaction to the Supreme Court`s overreaching 5-4 “Citizens United” decision that allows non-political organizations like publicly held corporations to put unlimited money into campaigns. The fundamental issue is one of property rights — why does a company I invested in because of its business potential get to spend my profits, without my consent, in support a candidate or issue that I might disagr...