Progress Energy general counsel John McArthur recently strode into an editorial board meeting at the St. Petersburg Times with all the confidence of a power company official who's made this pitch before.
Been here. Done this.
McArthur stopped by this month to explain the merits of a new clean-up-the-air legislative proposal blessed by St. Petersburg's Progress Energy Florida and Miami's Florida Power & Light and backed by Florida's Department of Environmental Protection. Among the proposal's aims: Progress Energy would cut in half its emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide at four coal-fired generators in its Crystal River complex in Citrus County. That complex is the state's largest and most polluting power-generation site.
To help pay for such anti-pollution efforts - but also to cover the start-up costs of three new Polk County power plants coming on line in 2006, 2008 and 2010 - Progress Energy would freeze its electric rates at or near its current price for seven years.
Just for the record, Progress Energy charges $89.11 for 1,000 kilowatts of electricity. That's on the high side of historical electricity prices. And it's well above the rate of $81.62 that Progress Energy embraced less than two years ago as a goodwill gesture to Floridians after the North Carolina company bought up Florida Power Corp.
No matter. Think of the stability Florida customers could enjoy knowing their $89.11 rate would not rise for seven years, McArthur said.
He was convincing. He was smooth.
Maybe it's because McArthur, based at Progress Energy's headquarters in Raleigh, N.C., also happened to be the power company's point man on almost exact legislation two years ago in North Carolina. After initial complaints from North Carolina's industrial customers and concerns voiced by some state legislators, the measure was approved with a five-year rate freeze.
North Carolina's residential rate is frozen at $84.93. That's almost $5 cheaper than the current electricity rate charged Floridians.
Now Progress Energy Florida hopes to push through the Legislature in Tallahassee the deal it won with the passage of North Carolina's Clean Smokestacks Act. In addition to freezing rates in Florida of Progress Energy and FP&L customers for seven years, the plan would let the two power companies accelerate depreciation of their new pollution controls.
That's a big financial gift. Rather than write down the cost of the controls over many years, the plan would allow the companies to pay off the bulk of their costs - plus those of some new power plants - during the rate freeze.
As our Tallahassee reporter Joni James explains in a related story, Florida businesses large and small dislike the proposal because current rates are so high. A seven-year freeze would rob customers of the chance at a price cut until 2011 at the earliest. (Some adjustments to a frozen rate could be made by the Public Service Commission if Progress Energy or FP&L's costs dropped or rose more than 10 percent during the seven years.)
Among the Florida corporations complaining? Publix Super Markets, one of the state's biggest energy users.
The sense in Tallahassee is this pollution-rate deal has a long way to go - if it sees the light of day at all.
I do not doubt that. But North Carolina legislators were wary at first of their version of the measure in 2002. With the backing by Florida's governor, state environmental regulators and the formidable host of Progress Energy and FP&L lobbyists, this proposal could still see its way into law sooner than expected.
Who's going to argue adamantly against cutting air pollution?
If the measure does not pass, who really expects electricity rates to drop much - if at all - in the next seven years?
Gasoline prices are hitting daily records. Oil prices are high, and the Middle East is in turmoil. Natural gas prices have doubled since the mid 1990s as demand for the cleaner fuel outstrips supply.
Energy experts, including Daniel Yergin, president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, warn that energy prices are generally heading in one direction: Up.
"Our cost forecasts are trending up 2 to 3 percent annually," said Progress Energy spokesman Aaron Perlut.
Last week, Gov. Jeb Bush praised Tampa Electric Co. for replacing an aging coal-fired power plant with a new and environmentally friendlier gas-fired facility.
This is a good thing. But it also comes with a higher price tag that natural gas will likely carry as a fuel of choice in producing electricity.
When serious conservation, support for new technology and alternative energy ideas are most needed, we hear almost nothing from our national leaders.
Nothing comes cheap anymore when it comes to keeping the lights on and the air a bit cleaner.
