Aluminum smelters push for free energy markets

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This year's legislative session is rapidly coming to a close, but two very similar bills are still up for debate - one in each House.

As aluminum smelters in western Kentucky are faced with tough financial decisions due to rising energy costs, both House Bill 211 and Senate Bill 71 would bless "major users of electricity" (industrial plants) with the seemingly natural right to buy power on the open market. Current Kentucky law forces such businesses to purchase electricity from a specific utility company anointed by the legislature, regardless of their costs.

Naturally, Big Rivers Electric Corporation, the utility company chosen by Kentucky regulators to provide power to these overcharged aluminum smelters, thinks allowing businesses to purchase power on the open market is a bad idea. I doubt anyone's jaw dropped with that revelation.

Big Rivers claims these bills are bad ideas not because they would cost the company money if clients who consume as much power as western Kentucky aluminum smelters were allowed to take their business to a cheaper competitor, but because Big Rivers fears that other ratepayers in the area would have to pick up the slack. What humanitarians.

Regardless of how the utility company wants to sell their story, if they were allowed to shop the open market, aluminum smelters would cut 30% off of their energy costs. As it is, many of these smelters are likely to close down and the jobs they supported to be thrown under the bus.

It's a shame that a company has to spend big money lobbying the legislature just to be able to enjoy the right to purchase energy from the provider it sees fit. That's money that could have been turned into productive capital and opportunities for citizens hurting in the small towns of western Kentucky. Instead, it's spent on wining and dining legislators.