Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, earlier, we heard the gentleman from Illinois say that this was a just say no bill. You bet it is. That is exactly what it is.

It is the just say no bill--no to a weaker electric grid; no to fewer jobs, particularly in manufacturing and also in the coal and energy industries; no to regulations that do little to help the environment, but do a lot to raise your electric rates.

When we are talking about protecting the ratepayer--that is who we are talking about, the average man and woman in this country, the families that are out there struggling, trying to make ends meet in an economy that is flat--this bill says no, we are not going to pass a bill on to you for little gain in the environment, but to raise your electric rates tremendously. The American families cannot afford it.

Mr. Chairman, as an example, we heard from a former regulator earlier, but the Virginia State Corporation Commission--and that is the organization in Virginia--appointed judges who make the decisions on what you are going to pay for power in Virginia based on what is an appropriate amount.

They said that customers in Virginia will likely pay significantly more for their electricity.

The incremental cost of compliance for one utility alone--Dominion Virginia Power--would likely be between $5.5 billion and $6 billion on a net present value basis. That is just for one of the companies providing power.

Let me give you an idea, Mr. Chairman, of exactly what that means to the people of Virginia. In my district, I have 29 geopolitical subdivisions, 29 different jurisdictions. Only two of those jurisdictions get their power from Dominion Virginia Power. Now, remember, Dominion Virginia Power is going to cost the ratepayers $5.5 billion to $6 billion, but that doesn't cover the whole State and doesn't cover very much in my district at all.

And, accordingly, again going back to the statements of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, they say that, contrary to the claim that rates will go up but that bills will go down, experience and costs in Virginia make it extremely unlikely that either electric rates or bills in Virginia will go down as a result of the proposed regulations.

So this is a very important measure. One of our prior speakers said that we should take the time to craft some kind of a compromise. This bill puts everything on hold until court cases can be decided and let Governors come in and say: Well, wait a minute. We can't make this happen in our State--or in our Commonwealth, as the case would be with Virginia. That is important.

And maybe if we get this bill passed, we can sit down and find some way to compromise between the regulators at the EPA and the interests of the ratepayers. But because they are going to come out with this rule sometime later this summer, and the States have roughly 13 months thereafter to come up with their plan to meet the regulations, we do not have the ability to give that time.

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