Utilities to Michigan: Eat Me

Ken Sikkema's recent letter to the GR Press is starting to make a little more sense.

Turns out, the Utilities (Consumers and DTE) that wrote the legislation freeing them from regulation in 2000 (Public Act 141) have decided they really like being regulated monopolies after all. Especially after the earlier legislation transferred all of their stranded costs to the consumers.

What happened in '00 was that the legislature wanted to introduce more competition into the Michigan energy markets. Consumers and DTE said they can't do that given that they are saddled with all these sunk costs taken on with the assumption that they would be regulated forever and allowed to pass them along in perpetuity. They had their way (as they always do) and dumped billions of dollars onto businesses and consumers.

Take a look at your monthly bill; all those line items you don't understand - those are the sunk costs that you now own.

Now they want to eliminate all competition for alternative energy such as wind power and there's legislation in the House to do this. Could it be that former Senate head Sikkema is on the Utilities payroll? That would be a real shocker, wouldn't it.