WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From Westchester County Department of Communications. July 21, 2004: In his continuing effort to get electric rates reduced in Westchester, County Executive Andy Spano is once again urging the Public Service Commission (PSC) to put an end to the long-time practice of Con Edison’s electric users subsidizing Con Edison’s steam customers in Manhattan.
The Spano Administration will present testimony on this issue Thursday at 7 p.m. at a public hearing before the PSC at the Westchester County Center. The PSC hearing deals with rates the PSC proposes to set for its steam customers. Westchester has no steam customers. Over Westchester’s objections, the PSC proposes to continue, instead of to eliminate, the subsidies for steam customers.
The testimony on behalf of Spano will be presented by Edward Gibbs, executive director of the Westchester County Public Utility Service Agency.
This is just Spano’s latest legal effort to make sure that Westchester electric users are not unfairly charged. Earlier this year, after four years, Spano won his legal battle to put an end to a practice of forcing Con Ed’s Westchester electric ratepayers to subsidize Con Edison’s New York City electric ratepayers.
“Con Edison rates are high enough without Westchester residents and businesses having to pay more than their fair share,” Spano says in his prepared statement in the latest case involving steam customers. “We will continue to use every legal means possible to fight any and all overcharges.
As noted by Spano, “The electric customers should not be required to subsidize steam customers by approximately $100 million per year.” Of this, approximately $12 million would come from Westchester electric ratepayers, and the remainder from New York City electric ratepayers.
He further states, “It is incontrovertible that Con Edison’s electric customers are being required to subsidize a steam system that is geographically limited and serves only a limited number of large customers in Manhattan. It does not matter whether you call this a subsidy, transferred costs or rents by the electric system, it is in fact a subsidization of these large steam customers by electric customers, including those on low and fixed incomes.”
He argues that this subsidy is even more unfair when put in context of a request by Con Edison for a 9.2 percent increase in its electric rates for residential customers.
In November of last year, the PSC ordered a phase out of a long-time practice whereby Westchester’s Con Edison electric users were subsidizing New York City’s electric users. The order from the PSC came in response to a four-year-long legal battle initiated by Spano to change Con Ed’s rate structure. Annually, Westchester had been paying overcharges of $100 million to $120 million.
