About a dozen Hill staffers attended a congressional briefing hosted by the American Public Power Association (APPA) on Thursday, December 7, to hear NEPPA members give their views on how electricity markets in New England are functioning. Sharon Staz, NEPPA's Legislative Committee Chair and Kennebunk Light and Power General Manager, along with Glenn Steiger, General Manager of Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) and Brian Forshaw, on behalf of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (CMEEC), participated in a panel discussion highlighting the escalating prices in the region.
Staz told staff that the problems are so significant in Maine that the State Legislature considered a bill that would have taken Maine completely out of ISO-NE. Steiger stated that ISO-NE is not cost-conscious, and encouraged ISO-NE to join with public power to fix the transmission problems in the region. Forshaw told the gathering that, before utilities in New England can solve the ISO problems, they need the help of the Congressional delegation "to put consumers back into the equation." Forshaw said that CMEEC's power supply and transmission costs increased from 1% to 28% in one year, and unfortunately, "there is nothing much consumers can do about these increases in costs." Forshaw indicated that ISO-NE, like other RTO/ISO's, are searching for the "holy grail "of competitive markets, without regard to the impact on electric consumers. "Until the ISO is directed to be cost accountable to consumers, we should not expect the situation to change," Forshaw concluded.