Mirant, the national power generation company that owns the Dickerson fossil fuel electric plant, is in the cross-hairs of a new carbon tax proposed by Council Member Roger Berliner. Mirant is a convenient political target given the $250,000 fine it recently paid for repeated pollution violations and its case has not helped by push polling. But now the lobbying campaign against the bill has been associated with an unthinkable act: stealing email addresses from ordinary residents to launch an astroturf lobbying campaign.
Last week, hundreds of emails began pouring into the County Council opposing the carbon tax. (The carbon tax, which would apply only to Mirant’s facility, is not to be confused with the broader energy tax increase proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett. That tax would apply to everyone.) The emails read:Dear Council Member [Name]:
When Council Member George Leventhal replied to a constituent who supposedly sent such an email, the person claimed to support the tax and said this email was sent without his permission or knowledge. So what happened?
Please oppose the proposed carbon tax bill because it will make electricity more expensive and hurt the environment.
Increased electricity costs will be passed on to consumers. Raising the price of electricity hurts families struggling to get by and hurts local employers who provide jobs and tax revenue our county needs.
Maryland has the toughest air quality standards in the East and participates in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Making Maryland generated power more expensive will only result in more importation of electricity from dirty coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Finally, the bill does not even reduce greenhouse gas emissions it simply shifts them out of state.
We all want clean air and to protect the environment. This bill does neither and it hurts consumers.
Sincerely,
[Constituent Name and Address]
The email originated with the address advocacy@mylegislators.com and was sent on behalf of the constituent’s email address. Somehow, the originator obtained the constituent’s email address, name and physical address and incorporated them into the email sent to the County Council.
Mylegislators.com is a URL registered by Domains by Proxy Inc., a common arrangement used to conceal the identity of website owners. However, the operator is pretty obvious since the associated domain servers are DDCNS1.DEMOCRACYDATA.COM and DDCNS2.DEMOCRACYDATA.COM and visitors to the URL are automatically redirected to this page established by DDC Advocacy. The company describes itself this way:DDC Advocacy is the only true full-service advocacy firm. We combine deep expertise, leading technology, and extensive capabilities to deliver high-impact advocacy programs and campaigns.
DDC is a major astroturfer with connections to the Bush Administration and Michael Scanlon, the convicted former press secretary for Congressman Tom “the Hammer” DeLay and lobbyist with Jack Abramoff. It has launched mass email campaigns in Arkansas, Hawaii, Washington and now Maryland. Arkansas House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson complained about the company’s tactics on his blog:
DDC Advocacy is a proven partner in helping you:
Raise awareness with key audiences
Turn constituents into advocates, and advocates into true champions
Mobilize advocates to participate in meaningful ways
Empower advocates to engage with legislators on many different levelsFlooding legislators’ inboxes with messages to support or oppose specific legislation is nothing new. However, there are several new sites popping up on the ‘net (mylegislators.com) where anyone can enter any name and email address and send a message of their choice to legislators of their choice. I’ve received over 800 e-mails in the last week on several issues, but most have focused on (1) the cigarette tax, (2) illegal immigration, and (3) worshipping with guns, and many of them have come from advocacy@mylegislators.com.
We understand that lobbying campaigns are supposed to be creative, but is identity theft really an acceptable advocacy tactic? If Mirant’s goal is to obtain a unanimous vote in favor of the carbon tax, it may just get its way. As for the rest of you, well… you could very well be writing strong emails to elected officials and not even know it!
I respond to each message, but I was much quicker to respond to one fairly touchy e-mail that arrived last night from an old family friend in opposition to the cigarette tax. I picked up the phone and called her, and she had no idea what I was talking about. “You can add as much tax to cigarettes as you want -- I hate ‘em,” she said. “Plus, don't take this the wrong way, but I have never thought about e-mailing you.” Kinda makes me wonder who I'm responding to in many of these e-mail messages.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Dirty Power, Dirty Tricks
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Push Poll on Berliner Carbon Tax
Multiple sources have reported receiving phone calls amounting to "push polls" on Council Member Roger Berliner's proposal to tax carbon emissions from Mirant's fossil fuel power plant in Dickerson. The caller recites a variety of information about the proposal, often too quickly for the recipient to hear, and then asks whether the recipient agrees with the tax. Based on the feedback we have received, we do not believe the push poll will be very effective.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Maryland Ratepayers Fatten Power Industry Bosses
Maryland’s electric power industry has been in the news quite a bit lately. The Washington Post had a good wrap-up story a couple weeks ago on how Maryland consumers are struggling with rising electric bills. Politicker Maryland ran a few articles linking deregulation to campaign contributions. The Governor is announcing a legal settlement with Constellation Energy that would provide BG&E customers with a $170 rebate each. And the Maryland Senate is considering a plan that would cut electric bills by $2 a month. But none of these stories cover an important set of facts: just how well have Maryland’s electric power companies fared under deregulation?
Traditionally, power companies were vertically integrated. They owned the generating plants, the transmission facilities and the distribution lines. Deregulation was intended to create competition by separating generation and distribution ownership. Multiple generators were supposed to compete by selling power at the lowest price to commercial and retail users. Those users would order that power through the now-independent distribution companies.
After Maryland passed its law in 1999, its power industry re-organized to comply with the new regime. Baltimore Gas & Electric established a new holding company, Constellation Energy Group, and separated its generation and distribution assets into different subsidiaries. Allegheny Energy, which owned Potomac Edison in Western Maryland, followed suit. Pepco sold its power plants to a totally independent third party, national generator Mirant, and became a pure distributor. Those corporate re-organizations are one reason why deregulation is so hard to undo.
Consumer choice took effect in 2000, but to give competition a chance to develop, consumer retail rates were frozen through 2006. However, there were two problems. First, no new major competitors came to Maryland. Second, power fuel prices soared. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 2000 and 2006 wholesale prices increased 44% for coal, 80% for natural gas and 116% for refined petroleum. Constellation and Pepco claimed that these input cost increases were largely responsible for the 40-70% electric bill hikes faced by Maryland ratepayers starting in 2006.
Is that true? If all the power companies were doing was passing on cost increases to consumers (something the old regulated system was supposed to restrain), we would expect the companies to report higher revenues but stable net incomes. But that is far from what is really happening. Below we report to our readers the financial results from Maryland’s four largest electric power companies in 2003 and 2007 from their Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We also report the total compensation earned by their CEOs in 2003 and 2006 (the latest year available). Judge for yourselves the real record of Maryland’s deregulation.
Constellation Energy
Parent Company of BG&E, Nationwide Merchant Generator
Stock Close, 1/2/03: $24.84
Stock Close, 3/26/08: $90.23
Revenue, 2003: $9.343 Billion
Revenue, 2007: $21.193 Billion
Net Income, 2003: $277 Million
Net Income, 2007: $822 Million
Chairman/President/CEO: Mayo A. Shattuck III
Total Compensation, 2003: $6,901,426
Total Compensation, 2006: $20,058,669
Pepco
Electricity Distributor in Washington Suburbs
Stock Close, 1/2/03: $15.61
Stock Close, 3/26/08: $24.67
Revenue, 2003: $7.269 Billion
Revenue, 2007: $9.366 Billion
Net Income, 2003: $107 Million
Net Income, 2007: $334 Million
Chairman/President/CEO: Dennis R. Wraase
Total Compensation, 2003: $895,942
Total Compensation, 2006: $4,921,550
Mirant
Nationwide Merchant Generator, Owner of Former Pepco Power Plants
Stock Close, 1/2/03: NA (Filed for Bankruptcy on 7/14/03)
Stock Close, 3/26/08: $35.92
Revenue, 2003: $3.856 Billion
Revenue, 2007: $2.019 Billion
Net Income, 2003: Lost $3.835 Billion (declared bankruptcy)
Net Income, 2007: $1.995 Billion (includes $1.562 billion from discontinued operations)
President/CEO in 2003: S. Marce Fuller
Total Compensation, 2003: $3,231,071
Chairman/President/CEO in 2006: Edward R. Muller
Total Compensation, 2006: $8,646,648
Allegheny Energy
Generator and Distributor in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Western Maryland
Stock Close, 1/2/03: $7.76
Stock Close, 3/26/08: $50.39
Revenue, 2003: $2.182 Billion
Revenue, 2006: $3.307 Billion
Net Income, 2003: Lost $355 Million
Net Income, 2007: $412 Million
Chairman/President/CEO: Paul J. Evanson
Total Compensation, 2003: $7,652,138 (includes “make-whole payment” of $6,397,330 connected to leaving another power company in mid-year)
Total Compensation, 2006: $9,329,832
Now I suppose we could recover some of these executives’ plunderings from Maryland ratepayers through a millionaire surcharge but some people might argue against that. After all, if any of these looting bosses – excuse me, these upstanding members of the community – actually live in Maryland, we don’t want to drive them out of the state, right?
