Guess This Explains the Brownout the Other Day...

Why must I care or have to pay to get Entergy New Orleans out of bankruptcy sooner? If I file for bankruptcy, I don't get a raise at work to help me avoid it or pull out of the hole sooner. Entergy has asked for $718 million in federal money for itself alone, to repair hurricane damage and compensate for "losses in revenue" (there was plenty that needed to be fixed before Katrina; like LSU "running" Charity Hospital here, it expects the government to pay for everything that is broken, hurricane-related or not) and ratepayers on the East Bank will "only" be paying $118 million of this. (The West Bank/Algiers is served by Entergy Louisiana.) Entergy New Orleans is asking the city council for a 25% rate increase:

Based on a typical home that uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity and 5,000 cubic feet of natural gas, customers would see their electric and bills rise from $177.58 a month to $207.12 a month. Entergy New Orleans is also requesting that the typical customer pay about $9.20 a month to help recover the $118 million in storm costs and another $5.85 a month to build up a $150 million storm reserve account, for a total monthly bill of $222.

About $128 of the bill would be for the electric portion, still much lower than Boston, where the typical electric bill is $207.34, the highest in the nation. [And salaries are higher in Boston] Electric costs, however, would still be higher than the rest of the state.

Those costs include fuel adjustment charges, a line item on customers bills which varies month by month depending on the cost of fuel.

Gas customers would have rates skyrocket 160 percent, [emphasis added] from $15.72 a month to $41.02 a month. That dramatic rise is because of the extensive damage to the gas system and the smaller customer base, Entergy said. There is no available data to compare how that rate compares with the rest of the state or the nation.

The total increase of 25 percent, though, is far short of the 140 percent increase that Entergy has been warning of, if the company doesn't get a portion of the federal money. [emphasis added]

If the City Council doesn't agree with Entergy's recommended rate increase, it could affect the company's ability to emerge from bankruptcy, according to Phillip May, vice president of regulatory services for Entergy Corp.

"It would delay our ability to emerge from bankruptcy," May said. "Or worse."

So Entergy New Orleans (not Entergy Louisiana or any other Entergy subsidiary/"sister" company) goes bankrupt. Profit is not a civil right or guarantee and business is always a risk, especially something like utilities which shouldn't be run for profit in my opinion. If corporations can ignore shareholders' interests and employee pension plans and regulations and public welfare, I can ignore Entergy New Orleans' "pain."

Where is my fucking gun?

tag: Entergy New Orleans, utility rate hike, New Orleans