Press Room

CRES BLOGGERS

August 15, 2006

by Phil von Hake

Intermountain Rural Electric Association – the electric co-op utility for the outer eastern, southern, and western suburbs of Denver ( www.intermountain-rea.com ) – is probably NOT on the Christmas card lists of anybody who regularly reads this blog. And, thanks to their latest shenanigans, they can expect increased correspondence of a very different kind.

PLEASE NOTE:
I trust that many of you already know the background on IREA, and even know much of this story. If so, then PLEASE skip down to the “This is where YOU come in!” action items at the end of this article … Thanks!

Background

As you probably already know, IREA is a 99%-coal-fired utility, and appears to have no plans to change that fuel mix anytime soon. They were the most vocal opponents of the Amendment 37 campaign in 2004; they were the first utility to take advantage of Amendment 37’s opt-out provision in 2005, and have continued to find fault with that & most/any other forward-thinking ideas about energy at every opportunity since then. But their latest stunt takes the cake, and has prompted many of us to spring into action.

As you may also know by now, IREA General Manager Stan Lewandowski wrote a letter on July 17 to a few hundred of his rural electric co-op colleagues. In that letter, Lewandowski divulged that Dr. Patrick Michaels – Virginia’s state climatologist, and one of the scientific community’s few remaining skeptics on climate change – admitted that he was running out of money, and needed more if they wanted him to keep singing the fossil fuel industry’s tune. IREA promptly cut him a check for $100,000 (of its customers’ money, by the way), and used this letter to urge other utilities to do the same. As Lewandowski wrote: “We cannot allow the discussion [about climate change, and humans causing most of it] to be monopolized by the alarmists.”

I have no problem with somebody like Stan Lewandowski labeling you, me, Al Gore, et. al. as “alarmists.” But I do have the following serious problems with this letter, and with IREA making itself out to be the natural enemy of CRES and 21st-Century Thinking:

Misuse of Customers’ Money

I should admit that I am not an IREA customer. Yet I have already heard an earful from colleagues of mine about what their utility is doing with their money … but without their approval, and (since this letter came to our attention from “confidential sources”) without even their knowledge of it. Lewandowski also writes how “We [IREA] would not want to do anything that would harm our ability to be able to provide the best possible service at the lowest possible cost to our members.” Well then, Stan: why not put that hundred grand into the annual rebate you send back to your customers???

And, while I admit that “the best possible service” can mean any number of things, putting all of one’s eggs into the coal basket could not possibly bode well for potential future developments like declining coal supplies (now a real possibility, thanks to China’s skyrocketing coal demand), added clean-air regulations, carbon taxes, etc.

Turning an “accomplished scientist” into a paid hack

Yes, Michaels did start all this by asking IREA & Co. for money … but that automatically moves the focus away from whatever credentials he may have as a scientist, and places it directly on the fact that he’s being paid by the fossil fuel industry to say what he’s saying. He might as well be like the average pro athlete, whose corporate sponsors prominently adorn their uniforms, equipment, and everything else they might be seen with. By the way: If somebody can get a hold of an IREA hat or other apparel, I have a use for it the next time Dr. Michaels comes to town to “present his scientific findings” … !

Plagiarism

I hadn’t thought of this until Denver Post Business columnist (and IREA customer) Al Lewis brought it up on August 4. Al read Lewandowski’s letter, and wondered how & where the head of an electric utility learned to write with such artistry. Well, he didn’t write it. Instead, he copied & pasted the majority of his letter from KOA talk show host Mike Rosen. Colorado Media Matters breaks it down enough to show a word-for-word transfer from Rosen’s June 9 column in the Rocky Mountain News to Lewandowski’s July 17 letter. This is admittedly a minor point in the overall discussion of climate change, but one worth mentioning nonetheless, as it provides further evidence of IREA’s “integrity” in this debate. Read Al’s column, and then be sure to post a comment to the blog he’s set up to accompany it.

Stuck in the 19th Century:

While Xcel Energy also opposed Amendment 37, we can generally agree that they have taken some commendable steps since then, especially when compared to IREA’s slavish devotion to 19th-century technology. Xcel’s current wind-energy commitment will enable them to more than meet their Amendment 37 requirements, and long before the 2015 deadline. And they’re not doing this just to be good citizens, either: Xcel sees the business opportunities in further diversifying their fuel mix, and taking advantage of an energy source with infinitely greater price stability than any fossil fuels.

Media Coverage … ?

My colleagues at Environment Colorado passed the Lewandowski letter on to one of their reporter friends at the Associated Press, and he placed an excellent original story on the AP wire on July 27. That story was immediately picked up on the Reuters wire, and also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, FOX News, and some eighty other news outlets worldwide … but none of them from Colorado …???

I worked with Environment Colorado to alert some of Colorado’s mainstream media to this Colorado-based story, and a smaller version of it (finally!) appeared in the Sunday Denver Post on July 30. The Rocky Mountain News followed with an even more thorough treatment on August 3, and Letters to the Editor have been coming in steadily to those & other papers ever since.

CRES Treasurer Tom Konrad also provided his own unique scientific and financial take on this story through his blog.

And even California Senator Dianne Feinstein joined the fray with her own sternly worded letter to Lewandowski himself!

But you have to wonder why this story is drawing so much more attention outside of Colorado, not to mention outside of IREA’s own service territory … ???

This is where YOU come in!

This is my second entry to the CRES Blog, and it will be the second straight time I’ve implored my dear readers to “Join Us! Tell Your Friends! Spread the Word!” etc. But there is now a critical mass of IREA customers, CRES members, and other concerned parties out there who have had enough of these shenanigans.

• We ask you first & foremost to NOT LET THIS STORY GO AWAY!
  IREA has felt heat like this before, and has always managed to lay low enough for long enough so things could blow over, thus allowing them to carry on with their Business as Usual practices.
   
• We ask you to send an e-mail to IREAnews@gmail.com , and join the “IREA Voices” group & e-mail list.
   
• We also ask you to check out and contribute to the blog we’ve established at http://mountainpower.blogspot.com .
   
• If you are (or know) an IREA customer, we implore you to spread the word about this story & call to action around to any other IREA customers you know, and get them to join or e-mail list & blog. Regardless of where they stand on climate change, they need to know what their utility is doing behind their backs. And, as if 99%-coal-fired electricity isn’t bad enough, we also need to find out what ELSE they might be doing behind your backs.
   
• And while coverage of this story has been slow & slim in Colorado’s mainstream media, it’s been non-existent inside IREA territory itself(!). Please write a Letter to the Editor of your local/community newspaper about this story (along with any of the sub-plots described here … or come up with one of your own!) in order to energize it and its readership. IREA customers can (and should) even write a letter to Stan Lewandowski himself in order to drag this and other nefarious practices out into the open.
   
• The founding members of IREA Voices have already met a few times, and will be having its first public meeting some time in August. Please join us to help “hold IREA’s feet to their own coal-fueled fire,” and don’t let this story die. Together we can “change IREA, one voice at a time!”

Thanks very much, and looking forward to see you joining us at IREA Voices!

Phil von Hake
303-762-8547
phil@pvhccc.com