Letter: Taxes are Only Part of the Plant Problems

When Massachusetts faced tax reductions, as a result of partial deregulation of electric power generation, they included a section in the law that limited to 10 percent per year the reduction in taxes. Anything more would have created havoc in the schools and the local communities.

A similar political compact should be enacted for the Port Jefferson and Huntington electric power plants. It is hard to understand why our elected leaders appear quiet on the issue. Do they have the will and the ability?

If the Port Jefferson plant is not repowered, the tax base will disappear entirely sometime after 2013 regardless of the tax certiorari filed by National Grid at LIPA's direction. A political solution to the tax issue would clear the table so that we were instead able to address the modernization of the large workhorse power plants on Long Island. This is the long term issue that needs to be resolved. These plants must be transformed into modern, efficient, clean and environmentally acceptable electricity generators.

The root cause of the problem faced by Port Jefferson and Huntington is the lack of investment by the British owner National Grid and its predecessor Keyspan in these aging plants. It is a scandal that National Grid has run the plants into obsolescence.

A single company owns the majority of base load generating plants on Long Island. They appear not to have spent one penny of their own money to increase the efficiency of their plants. They have instead argued that LIPA (read the rate payers) should in effect fund such an upgrade of their plants - their private property - through long term power supply commitments.

This lack of investment is the main cause of the fact that Long Island has among the highest rates for electricity in the United States. A sorry state of affairs that is not foremost due to the Shoreham debt or high taxes, as some would have us believe. If you look closely at the data from the New York wholesale electric power auction (which determines the marginal cost of power on Long Island before debt, taxes, administrative, and transmission costs), you will discover that we have the highest price for wholesale electricity in the State and consequently the highest electricity rates. There is no good excuse for this.

As this scandal continues, NRG, a private generation company, is spending $1.4B of their own funds to repower their Astoria Queens plant, not a penny from Con Edison, and no guarantees by the rate payers (in the form of long term agreements).  New York City is doing much better than Long Island!

When Caithness, the new privately owned electric plant in Yaphank, was built, their financial risk was assumed by a long term supply agreement with LIPA. Simply put, the rate payers of Long Island assume the financial risk, while private actors pocket the financial rewards!  “No risk, no reward.” Did I get that right?

Electric power generation in New York was deregulated in the late 1990’s for the purpose of attracting private investment to upgrade the electric infrastructure, in particular generation. Long Island's politicians decided to hedge, instead cementing a cozy relationship between the utility, LIPA, and the main electric power generator, Keyspan (acquired by National Grid in 2007).

It has become clear over time that our politicians are not qualified to govern an electric utility. The LIPA board is appointed by Albany, by the governor, the senate and the assembly. Can anyone see why that is not a good concept: A politically appointed board in charge of LIPA? It is time to begin to address the real issues, not the peripheral ones like the tax certiorari, which has a straightforward political solution, as shown by the Massachusetts legislature.

Johan Gripenstedt, Port Jefferson