Cahill Blasts Backroom Agreement to Raise Central Hudson Rates

Says proposal would allow for excessive and unwarranted utility profits

February 4, 2010

Assemblymember Kevin Cahill (D – Ulster, Dutchess) released the following statement in response to the Central Hudson rate hike agreement that is now pending before the Public Service Commission:

“Central Hudson’s willingness to repeatedly saddle its customers with higher costs demonstrates a basic disconnect with the experiences of families and small businesses struggling to make ends meet in trying economic times. By cutting a backroom deal with big businesses and state agency bureaucrats, the utility has once again shut out the people that have been hit the hardest by the recession.

I am calling upon the Public Service Commissioners and the Consumer Protection Board to step up and ensure the public is represented before any decision is made and to prevent this backroom deal from becoming a reality. I will do everything I can to make sure that happens.

Allowing the utility to earn more than a ten percent rate of return is outrageously excessive, unwarranted and well above what most investors could reasonably expect in today's economic climate. The Commission should only approve costs that are essential to maintaining service integrity while rejecting those that are designed to overflow the pockets of Central Hudson’s shareholders.

The Assembly and indeed the Legislature has struggled to hold the line on new taxes on working New Yorkers. We are all struggling right now and increases to our utility bills will make the current economic condition even worse. Hiking our utility rates beyond what is necessary to assure safe and reliable service is just unconscionable in these tough times. I have and will continue to take my opposition to the rate hike directly to the Commission, the Consumer Protection Board and the executives at Central Hudson until this deal is rescinded.”

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