Businesses accuse Puget Sound Energy of price gouging

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Businesses accuse Puget Sound Energy of price gouging December 12, 2000, 05:15 PM SEATTLE – The energy crisis on the West Coast has been growing since May, as prices on the open market for electricity have skyrocketed.

REPORTED BY Darin Watkins Now, seven companies insist that Puget Sound Energy is "gouging them" by charging higher market rates, even though its costs have stayed the same.

CNC container is located just outside Olympia. The company makes just about every plastic bottle in the Northwest. A key ingredient in the process - electricity.

In the past six months, its electric bills have soared.

“We won't be able to stay in business at that rate, its quite simple,” says Matt Franz of CNC Container.

Just how bad is it? In October of 1999 the price CNC paid for of a megawatt of electricity was $30. This week those rates have jumped 100-fold to over $3,000. The companies argue that Puget Sound Energy's costs have stayed the same.

“If you use the analogy of going in to fill up your gas tank, at a gas station. What's it cost you, 20, 30 bucks to fill up your tank? It would cost you 3,000. Obviously we're not going to be doing a lot of driving,” says Franz.

So CNC has joined six other Northwest companies in filing a complaint with the state's utilities and transportation commission, charging Puget Sound Energy with overcharging its customers.

"We believe that this market index pricing is so out of what from where it should be that Puget shouldn't be allowed to rely on that index to make what we think are windfall profits," said Melinda J. Davison of Industrial Customers of NW Utilities.

“Our concern is that Puget Sound isn't paying that for their electricity, and they're gouging their customers, pure and simple,” says Franz.

Before it comments, Puget Sound Energy wants to see the complaint, which could be heard as early as Thursday.

At least one state lawmaker is considering legislative hearings on why Washington's electricity prices are among the highest in the nation.

Several of these companies are now talking about moving out of Washington state because of unstable power prices.

http://www.king5.com/localnews/storydetail.html?StoryID=10406

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 12, 2000


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