re: Should North LA pay for coastal hurricane power grid repair? Foster Campbell says "NO"

If there is any disparity in tax revenues, it was paid in full many times over when you foisted your Katrina refugees on us.

quote:

---

While yall bitch about North and South LA I'm sitting here wondering why any customer has to pay a surcharge for a company to repair it services. It's bull shite.

---

Read the thread. It's been explained.

ETA: I'm gonna take a shot at this.

You own a half trillion dollar company on the West Coast. Right on the San Andreas fault. You have to be there because that's where your customers are. The California government only allows you to charge customers enough to cover your business expenses plus 10%. You have a half trillion invested in your factory, but since it's on the San Andreas fault, no insurer will touch you, even though earthquakes are rare. You could tear down your factories and rebuild to earthquake-proof buildings, but that has to come out of the 10% profit you're allowed to make, because the government won't let you raise your prices.

An earthquake hits. Your company has $4 billion in damages, but you only have $250 million on hand. The government forces you to rebuild, because you cannot go out of business: the public depends on your company to supply your product. If you don't rebuild, no other businesses can operate. You are forced to spend $4 billion to recover, and the government doesn't give you a penny, so you have to borrow it, and it's paid back out of your 10% profit UNLESS you get a small surcharge on every invoice until it's recovered.

Nobody in his right mind would go into this business by choice, because there's no money in it, but SOMEBODY has to do it because EVERYBODY needs it.

The surcharge keeps the business running and the lights on. The money is already been spent, and if it was rolled into the rate, your bill would triple. That's why the PSC allows Entergy to recover it over an extended period.

Keep in mind that Louisiana as a whole (including other power utilities) has the LOWEST power bills in the country.

quote:

---

Then secede. North LA offers very little to anyone.

---

Just all the gas to run the Lake Charles LNG and chemical plants.

quote:

---

I'm sitting here wondering why any customer has to pay a surcharge for a company to repair it services. It's bull shite.

---

You are kidding right?

Never want to sit with you in a Board Meeting when a building or manufacturing equipment gets destroyed.....Marketing has a ball figuring out how to replace those items ....It's called a price adjustment on the goods produced ....Otherwise ...the title is BANKRUPTCY.

quote:

---

Do you mark it on your invoice or build it into the price? With electricity its a damn line item on the bill.

---

For transparency. Same reason the fuel charge is a line item, to prove there's no markup on fuel. All mandated by the PSC to show the public why their bill is what it is.

quote:

---

That’s the kick isn’t?

Not every storm engulfs the state. There could be terrible weather in North LA and perfectly fine in south east LA and vice versa.

---

Barksdale Bubble baw. But seriously this was mostly a troll thread, no-one here is really going to seriously advocate for hanging a fellow Louisianian out to dry. Entergy itself is the problem.

quote:

---

Doesn't most of the state's revenue come from the southern part of the state and that revenue supply a great deal of funding for their part of the state?

---

The Southern part of the state produces most of the revenue, but probably even more of the expenses. The northern part of the state produces significantly less, but also costs even less.

quote:

---

Louisiana has a Democratic governor right now strictly because of the Bible Belts so called morals up north

---

Yeah you South LA Catholics didn't vote for muh good decent Catholic man in JBE did ya? Nah it was the northern Baptists that did it.

Under federal law, private investor-owned utilities like Entergy are not eligible for FEMA disaster assistance. Only government-owned utilities and electric co-ops are.

The only significant source of federal money available to private utilities are HUD grants, which must be applied for and justified after the fact on a case-by-case basis. Entergy pioneered that route after Katrina.