Sedona AZ (May 14, 2013) – In a Letter to the SedonaEye.com editor, Warren Woodward of Sedona, Arizona, writes the following RRN Guest Perspective column rebuttal to the Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Burns with copies to ACC Commissioners, Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne:

May 7, 2013

An Arizona citizen takes issue with ACC Commissioner Bob Burns position on smart meters

Commissioner Robert Burns

Re: Docket # E-01345A-13-0069

Commissioner Robert Burns;

Your May 1st “Guest Perspective” article in the Sedona Red Rock News was both inappropriate and inaccurate.

It seems very improper for you to parrot APS propaganda while APS’s so-called and misnamed “smart meter opt-out” fee request (AKA attempted extortion) is pending. In addition to improper, your comments may well be illegal but, as usual, it was very hard for me to get a straight answer out of anyone I contacted at the ACC regarding the rules of procedure. Indeed, one ACC staffer rudely blurted that she did not work for me – interesting news since I am both a ratepayer and a taxpayer.

Although you included a disclaimer in your remarks to the effect that you “have not reached any final conclusions”, you also chose to present only one view – the APS view – so the implication and effect of your article was endorsement of that singular, APS view. I see your disclaimer as a lame attempt to hide behind impartiality while at the same time spreading APS’s misinformation.

Amazingly, you reveal yourself to be more concerned about APS’s bottom line than with people’s health and privacy. In your article you mention a meeting you attended in Sedona in which people expressed health and privacy concerns regarding “smart” meters. Yet your response is that “… perhaps an important fact is getting lost in the discussion – namely, that the digital meters represent a significant cost savings to the utility, a savings, that, in turn, gets passed on to its customers.”

“Significant cost savings”? Do tell us exactly how much ratepayers will save per month? Substantiate your claim. Show us some numbers based on real life, not APS propaganda. If the cost savings are “significant” as you claim, then it should be easy for you to tell us specifically. Since some locations in Arizona and elsewhere have had “smart” meters installed for years then it should be easy for you to point to examples of “significant cost savings” that have been passed on to customers already, and when and where that has occurred.

Donald E. Brandt is the 58 yr-old Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer; Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, APS at Pinnacle West Capital

Wake up, Mr. Burns: There are no “cost savings”.  Besides, even if there were cost savings, what possible incentive does APS have to pass them on to customers?

They have no competition. The APS CEO’s compensation has gone from a bloated $5.66 million in 2010 to a piggish $7.9 million in 2011, and last year was a thoroughly obscene $11.5 million – this during a recession while many are struggling to pay APS rates! And while the APS CEO was making his multimillions, the ACC gave a rate increase to “poor” APS for not selling enough electricity. So don’t make me laugh about any savings getting passed on to the customer.

Neither the ACC nor APS has passed anything on to us except higher rates. 

I have sent you reports by various state Attorneys General attesting to and actually proving what a financial scam “smart” grid implementation is. Yet you still parrot the APS line? Incredible.

How ironic that your article appeared alongside an editorial in which the Sedona Red Rock News insisted they only print letters from people who provide documentation of assertions which are presented as facts.

Clearly neither you nor they fact-checked yours. Indeed, neither you nor the ACC have done any cost/benefit analysis of the “smart” grid even though an ACC decision called for one as far back as 2007. And yet you somehow feel qualified to lecture us about “significant cost savings”? Again, incredible.

Your article presents the myopic view that the only expense involved in the “smart” grid fiasco is meter reading. Do you read anything sent to you, anything posted to the docket? It certainly does not seem so since I have also previously sent you and the rest of the ACC a thorough debunking of every aspect of APS’s preposterous fee request. I am resending it as an enclosure. Read it this time and quit scapegoating people who refuse “smart” meters as a financial burden on everyone else, and absurdly, to blame for APS meter reader traffic accidents!

The real financial burden is the one APS is placing on all ratepayers by ripping out and ruining about a million perfectly working analog meters and replacing them with ones that cost about 5 times more. And then there are all the rest of the “smart” grid expenses detailed in my enclosed and previously sent letter, expenses on which APS gets to make an 8 to 10% guaranteed return simply because you and the others at the ACC have been totally asleep on the job and essentially gave APS carte blanche.

In actual fact, people refusing “smart” meters are paying for the “smart” meters of others (plus installation, related equipment and infrastructure, etc.) and without getting a “smart” meter themselves. People who refuse “smart” meters should really be getting a refund!

Read the reports of the various Attorneys General which have all been sent to you by me. 

Connecticut A.G.: “…the costs associated with the full deployment of AMI [“smart”] meters are huge and cannot be justified by energy savings achieved.

Illinois A.G.: “The utilities have shown no evidence of billions of dollars in benefits to consumers from these new meters, but they have shown they know how to profit.”

Michigan A.G.: “A net economic benefit to electric utility ratepayers from … smart meter programs has yet to be established.”

It is also astonishing that you completely ignore the total, utter and complete violation of private property that “smart” meters are. As I have pointed out repeatedly, APS does not have easement for what is essentially networking equipment. APS does not have easement to site microwave broadcasting antennas on people’s property. Period. That APS wants to charge people who do not allow APS to take and use their property for APS’s antennas and networking equipment is well beyond audacious; it is attempted extortion.

What is wrong with you?

I remember when real Republicans (of which there are too few today) revered private property. Now it seems that “significant cost savings to the utility” – and corporate greed in general – take precedence over individual rights and property rights with you Republicans. I can’t believe we are even having a discussion about payment to avoid such a property rights violation, not to mention payment to avoid having pulsed microwave 24/7/365 at one’s own home.

About a third of your article was a hymn of praise to Arizona’s Investor Owner Utility system. You mentioned that it is a “’regulated monopoly’ structure”, but where on Arizona earth has the regulatory part of the structure been all these years while APS has gone on a “smart” meter installation binge? There have been no hearings, no examination of facts or costs, no oversight of “smart” meters whatever by the ACC.

Arizona Revised Statutes and Arizona Administrative Code have been ignored and violated, including:

A.R.S. 40-361.B – Every public service corporation shall furnish and maintain such service, equipment and facilities as will promote the safety, health, comfort and convenience of its patrons, employees and the public, and as will be in all respects adequate, efficient and reasonable.

A.R.S. 40-321.A – When the commission finds that the equipment, appliances, facilities or service of any public service corporation, or the methods of manufacture, distribution, transmission, storage or supply employed by it, are unjust, unreasonable, unsafe, improper, inadequate or insufficient, the commission shall determine what is just, reasonable, safe, proper, adequate or sufficient, and shall enforce its determination by order or regulation.

A.R.S. 40-202.C.1 – Protect the public against deceptive, unfair and abusive business practices, practices related to deposit requirements and reconnection fees, intrusive and abusive marketing, deceptive or untrue advertising practices and practices prohibited under subsection H of this section.

A.A.C. R14-2-209.A.1 – Each utility, billing entity, or Meter Reading Service Provider may at its discretion allow for customer reading of meters.

With your pathetic repetition of APS propaganda, you insult the people you supposedly represent. I find you a disgrace to the system you laud, a system which could in fact work well if – if – regulators such as yourself did their homework, their jobs, and some genuine regulating.

In conclusion, from the article you wrote it seems clear you are at sea on this issue, in way over your head. Others and I have done all the research on this issue yet you seem incapable of grasping any of it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. In fact you ought to resign.

Sincerely,

Warren Woodward 

Cc: Commissioners Brenda Burns, Gary Pierce, Susan Bitter Smith, Bob Stump, Governor Jan Brewer, Attorney General Tom Horne 

PS – I am sending an additional copy of this letter, including enclosure, to the other “smart” meter docket # E-00000C-11-0328 as well so that in the future, when the lawsuits start, courts may have no doubt or question that you had knowledge upon which you refused to act and were therefore derelict in your duty.

[ The enclosure referred to in the letter may be found online here: Connecticut Attorney General Calls AMI Meter Use Punitive https://sedonaeye.com/connecticut-attorney-general-calls-ami-meter-use-punitive ]

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