Energy Companies Are Charging You For Their Corruption
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- Опубліковано 19 лют 2024
- A massive bribery and corruption scheme is fueling skyrocketing electric bills in Appalachia. Rates in West Virginia have gone up 90% in the last 15 years. First Energy-one of the largest investor-owned utilities-is to blame.
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Basically, in this country, corruption is driving everything
Public private partnerships is the problem.
@@RobbinFlowersThat’s Mussolini’s Fascism
@@scottohara9001 It is unfortunate.
It is the public's fault. The people are supposed to be in control of their own country...
@sabbracadabra8367 That is an illusion. The fact is the country is a plantation and the people are tax slaves. That is what the UN is crafted to create. Global slavery.
After using LESS POWER, we still got a PRICE HIKE, this shit exponentially hurts
I've done the same. I'm using less electricity by plugging out certain electronics that I don’t use every day and still by bill has risen. This is crazy.
Our electricity bill used to go down in the winter as we use gas to heat... not this year, wtf!
Riddle me this? What was the source of your power generation? Not you personally, but the power plant that actually supplies your power? Now go look and see what they used before 2009 is there a change in the fuel source?
@@joesalyers you get what you vote for, Government bailouts + stimmy checks = inflation which is directly proportional to higher energy bills
can't we just find out who's behind it and pay them all personal visits? can't we just occupy the legislation and force them to behave?
When a company commits bribery that corporation should be dissolved! People involved in the bribes shall go to jail.
Since Citizens United it isn't illegal.
White collar crime is not taken seriously enough because you dont get to see the people that are killed or injured.
@@bovinityleak2066you do see elderly die from lack of heating , cooling, and the inability to pay for both meds and utilities .
there goes your entire healthcare industry
@@bovinityleak2066 can't we find the people doing this and pay them all personal visits on the darkest of nights?
When i get off the phone with my electric company, they always say thanks for being a customer. I always say, I don't have a choice!
Yes you do. Solar + batteries; make the grid your back-up.
Most counties require you to be hooked up to utilities if its a residence.
3 months ago my bill was 160. Following month it was 316 (highest to that point). Most recent bill I have gotten is 456.70. projected next bill is $700. I have a modest home and keep my heat on 68. It's criminal.
Same here. I’m in Colorado and every month it’s between three and $400 for a modest sized house. Insanity
Digital meters are a scam !!!!
And a fire hazard !
Mechanical analog maters can't lie !!!!
They are not a black box !!!
My monthly electric bill is more fees that actual electric usage.
recovery fee?
I don’t see you bitching about telephone charges. BTW they are mostly driven by Federal government add ons and some local ones. Usually approaching 50% of the bill or more.
Whereas, electric bills are to reimburse for large cost of Fixed cost (building and maintaining those power lines, power generation stations, transfer stations) and variable cost (cost of fuel for power generation).
Versus telephone: high fixed costs and low variable costs
Get on the phone to your congressmen, I don’t need the pay extra taxes for Obama phones for millionaires just because they are on Social Security disability or any other many government programs.
Also stop complaining about bills if you voted for democrats and half the republicans that caused inflation. If you haven’t noticed gasoline, diesel, kerosine, natural gas prices have doubled in the last 4 years meanwhile you wring your hands about nuclear.
Same in illinois!☆!
Not mine. My bill for this month is less than $100, and I'm home all day long.
We need TERM LIMITS, folks. We have to take corruption seriously.
No, we need capital punishment for corruption in politics.
It’s not term limits; limit the amount of money people can contribute to campaigns. No corporations should contribute at all. Pay the elected officials more so they won’t be tempted to take bribes and have severe punishments such as long prison terms plus having all their wealth confiscated. The reason not to have term limits on congress and senate is that it takes time to get good at running a government, which is not like running a business; you don’t want a buch of freshmen running the government all the time. You see how screwed up the newbies have been thus far.
PUBLIC services shouldn't be PRIVATE companies ☠
More accurately:
PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE shouldn't be owned by PRIVATE COMPANIES.
This should include cable and internet services too.
@@r8chlletters definitely!
_*FOR-PROFIT companies_ First Energy is a publicly-traded company, which in some ways makes it _worse_ than a private company in this scenario, since a private company can forego profits, if it so chooses, whereas a public company is _legally obligated_ to "act in shareholders' best interests," and you know what that means...
@joez.2794 lolololol so unintelligent that I got a good laugh.
they would cost 10 times as much then. btw whats your thoughts on amtrak?
This is what privatization gives you .these are private companies with no competition. And they are out to make profit off of us
kinda (probably purposefully) vague there dont ya think? its more like eurocentric culture is adamant about preventing workers from being considered whole human beings so its our cultural goal to treat those who arent rich as badly as we can get away with. seeing as none of you say a single f()cking peep about the FACT that 99% of the human species currently dies from labor induced starvation because of eurocentric cultural norms, i doubt you truly have the capacity to care enough to be critical and honest enough to question your culture.
Our water is owned by Britton. Taxation without Representative !!!!
I don’t disagree, but there’s been privatization in energy for decades, and this is a new beast. Private equity ownership, political corruption, and it appears that the effort by right-wing operatives to poison the governmental well has been wildly successful. It’s no longer enough to rope in a healthy, sustainable profit as they had for decades. Now it’s gotta deliver 10x annual returns, and it’s off the backs of citizens who carry little to no real oversight power. This isn’t just capitalism, it’s out of control, and it will end badly for everyone.
Some things are simply NOT meant to be for-profit. Things like electric distribution, the post office, and healthcare. These are public SERVICES, they aren't supposed to be making profits
All power distribution should be socialized. This bullshit about privatization bringing innovation is just a smokescreen for privatization bringing corruption.
Public utilities should not be for profit !!!
That is socialism...
I think every home should have its very own power plant, a network of them. Rather than one giant one, that only the few control.
And? Maybe we need a bit of it in certain sectors. Thay cant ever hope to achieve record profit year after year.
Without increasing prices for no valid reasons.
@@DistrustHumanz
@@DistrustHumanzpublic education and social security is also socialism, idgaf what you call it. Its necessary. We pay more than enough in taxes to fund it all but all that money gets blown by our shitty gov't officals
Look into federal agencies across the US that market hydro power. Private companies hate them because they keep rates lower.
Yup, got a bill for $690 last night (ONE MONTH) and this was with us away for an entire week.
This is getting insane.
Holy crap! Surely you left the heat pump blasting?
Just the fact that one woman was a lobbyist for the energy company and then becomes the commissioner... That should be considered corruption itself
California's CPUC board members are former utility employees.
they elected and I bet they re-elect that governor that appointed them
I can’t understand how a public need like utilities can be legally operated by for-profit corporations. Especially since consumers are given no choice as to who provides this service.
Government just doesn’t want to do any work and get paid
Some states you can choose the supplier. For my household in PA, our supply of electricity is only 60% of the bill. The rest is tax and "customer fees".
I'ma just copy paste what I wrote elsewhere:
"A lot of propaganda from companies has caused a lot of Americans to associate Private = Good / Public = Bad. So when those companies then came around offering to privatize formerly public amenities, where they are legally afforded monopolies, the inevitable happened."
Even when the source and cause of the corruption is obvious, half of Americans bought into this, and the awful service is as good as it gets, as far as they're concerned. Because they think privatizing it would be even worse.
Because corrupt, wealthy right-wingers designed the US government, and BOTH political parties are bought, owned, bribed, and controlled by wealthy right-wing-extremist Repubs and wealthy moderate-right-wing Dems. It is really quite simple.
wait till you find out about the healthcare!
The fact that these companies can become publicly traded on Wall Street is the root of all the problems. Once you make them beholden to shareholders and profits before anything else, it’s going to escalate corruption very fast!!
We saw exactly this with PG&E here in California a few years back. They took the money from their emergency fun to pay out to shareholders, then the next year when the massive wildfires hit, they had no money to pay for the lawsuits against them for not properly maintaining their infrastructure.
Now we have an extra fee on our bills to pay for those costs... costs that they HAD the money for until they paid it out to themselves and their shareholders.
@@anthonydelfino6171 We have this in FL in the insurance industry too. There was even a huge news scandal about it for like, a month, before the news outlets got the memo that they can't say corruption in business practices was causing the price hikes, so the switched over to the lawsuit song-and-dance routine.
The bigger problem is exec compensation. Being public was fine until the 90s when they started shoveling free stock into exec's pockets as "compensation". It is so bad that when the stock dips, they bribe the execs with more stock to make up for the "losses". What is really happening is they get a ton of free stock and keep getting more until they own enough that they get a board seat and basically can run the company for their own enrichment instead of running the company well. No one at the executive level in any company should be allowed to own stock for that company or complimentary companies.
Stock should only be ownable for non execs. The people hired to run a company should not be turned into owners. When they become large stock owners, they can ignore the company and just focus on stock price. This is exactly what wall street wants. They got what they wanted by having companies they are on the board of print stock to ensure CEOs have so much of it, they disconnect from the company. Golden parachutes also need to be banned. These exist so that an exec will not be afraid to bankrupt the company doing what wall street wants. Either the stock will make them super rich or the golden parachute will.
You know what they say. Once you go public, you never go black.
@@_PatrickOReminds me of a former Wells Fargo CEO and the fallout after forcing employees to open bank accounts without telling customers. Employees lost their jobs, the bank got a slap on the wrist, and the CEO got millions in severance and stock and avoided jail time. Who says crime doesn't pay?
It’s crazy that private corporations can charge us for the energy that should be part of the common wealth
I had a over $500 bill one month. Continental Divide Electric new mexico Its crazy. HELP!!!!
I reported to my governor. They don't care they are in the pockets of big Electric with nice donation check😢
FirstEnergy owns the stadium I live next to in PA. It was originally named Reading Municipal-Memorial Stadium before corporate sponsorship changed it to its creatively named First Energy Stadium. They also exclusively own the Electrical training at our Community College. The amount of corruption that we allow into our homes, education, and communities is shameful. Our state and federal governments are not only complicit but are directly involved. Private interest groups own the country. Not the people.
Not surprising when those who want to effect change beg the people to vote and still the people don't vote in the necessary numbers. Lazy idiots.
Just remember, it is the community who elects the members to the city council, the college board, the judges, etc.... These individuals are our family members, neighbors, brothers, husband's, wives, etc. Everyone in their family and neighborhoods knew about what kind of people they are....and your community elected them to look out for your interest..... As I say with all elections, "Be careful what you ask for because you just may get it."
@@jeffalvich9434Well said!!!
@@jeffalvich9434 - When people vote for "small government" and then discover the government is too small to stand up to corporations.
@@jeffalvich9434 No, it isn't. None of these parasites could even exist without the full support of both party's "leadership". Red or Blue doesn't matter, because all of them are in politics to make themselves richer.
This is not a free market. You have only 1 choice of provider. They should have never been allowed to be on the stock market as that has always led to higher prices and less quality. Regulation only works if the government has laws with teeth and that becomes impossible when they are lobbying/bribing these governments to weaken those laws. When the fines are less than the company made doing illegal activity why wouldn't they keep breaking the law?
Dominion energy in Utah also needs to be investigated. They have continued to jack up gas prices year over year without our government batting an eye at it.
AGREED
My electric company recently pled guilty to 80 counts of manslaughter! Was fined a few million dollars, posted profits of over 1 billion last year. It was also the basis of the movie Erin Brockovich, about when they poisoned a bunch of small towns! Yeah they've been approved for about 32% in rate increases over the past year and a half or so...... Basically, we have to pay for the legally required maintenance they didn't do for like 40 years that was directly responsible for a bunch of wildfires. One of which wiped a town off the map and brought about the whole "your company murdered 80 people via negligence" suit I was talking about. PG&E folks! One of the worst corporations in a country full of openly evil corporations!
The water poisoning of a few years ago was paid for by the citizens of West Virginia. That was one of the first moments i realized that moving here was a huge mistake 😢
It doesn't matter where you live. Corruption is everywhere. No responsibility. No accountability.
I am on a public, not for profit utility owned by the county, so we don't usually have to deal with these problems. I would suggest everyone start pushing their local city and county governments to switch to public utilities.
The problem is: most people think they ARE a publicly-owned utility. These private entities buy up the local utilities and keep the name so no one questions it too much.
here in Oregon we're still trying to pay for the disaster Pacific power caused to Paradise California. so, not only are we giving California our water, we're also paying extra high electric bills.
I've emailed our governor and I've emailed the utility commission here and I still haven't received a reply. (obviously not surprised). what can we do?
@@intuitionz1198 Where I live in Washington it has always been a public utility so the private sector for my city, sorry I said county before, has never existed.
It will take a grassroot movement to change your guy's circumstances. Portland, Oregon had a chance a few years back to buy out their private utility but voted against it. The power companies did a great job fighting it.
@@mgreg8134 thank you, I was wondering why that was. I'm a single person living in a house that did have two people living here before my mom died. she was sick for a long time and for about a year all I ever did was do laundry. she kept the TV on all the time. now she's gone, and I'm very careful about the electricity that I use. it doesn't make sense why my bill is more than double what it was.
there's a local Facebook group that I belong to here and I'm trying to get people interested in fighting this and encouraging people to also email but I have no idea if they're actually doing it. 😔
@@intuitionz1198 Pacific Power covers both areas, utility companies are not bounded by state borders... not sure what you mean by giving California your water, but when I tried to google this, the only dispute I can find is over a river that runs through both states, which in any other scenario means both states have rights to the water flowing through it. Oregon isn't "sending its water" if California is demanding its fare share of the water that flows in that river.
Every year I use a little bit less energy but my bill keeps going up significantly.
Same here in independence MO, when I first moved in my bill was around $150ish fast forward 6 years and it's almost $700. My utility company has been investigated for fraud. Taking bribes, but it all just got swept under the rug and nobody hears anything about it anymore.
I’m on the board of a small town-owned electric utility. Our rates are 30% less than neighboring towns, 100% non GHG emitting power supply, under grounded many of our lines so outages are rare and power is restored quickly. Since 1891 we have been run by the community to serve the community. Providing clean, reliable and affordable electricity is possible but it must be in service to the local community, not a for profit monopoly.
I would LOVE to know how you get your leaders to follow your concept. I live in a rural Colorado town where the county commissioners won't allow an affordable co-op here. We all voted for it but somehow, the commissioners keep blocking it. We are a poor town, but the commissioners aren't.
@@chinookvalley I don't know how you create a co-op utility. Our utility has always been owned and operated by the town government. 41 Municipal Light Department exist in Massachusetts and the youngest is about 75 years old.
Bill went from $130 to $340. My neighbors are seeing over $400. For a 1000 sq apartment in the midwest, this is insane
😮
Do you have an EV?
I had 1k square foot apartment in florida and used so little power they had to charge me the minimum bill not for what I used.
STOP USING FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING.
People need to stop respecting these shit 1950s stick crackerbox houses with shit insulation. They're awful and absolutely not worth the price people pay for them.
Dang! You mining bitcoin or something?
Wow you're right Insane they're out of control
Before my mom passed away. Labcorp was pushing to eliminate secondary testing for blood and urine samples. They claim that their machines that chronically break down from extended use can give perfect results the first time. Labcorp along with Quest Labs are constantly working employees to death and attempting break ethical boundaries associated with medical testing for cancer and STD’s. My mom’s greatest fear was giving someone a false positive and then they irrationally take their life. My mom constantly pushed back against corporate and their desire to eliminate secondary testing. But dont take my word for it. Everyone at labcorp hates the company.
More Perfect Union, please investigate this!
I can attest firsthand to these practices. Chronic overwork, staff shortages, lousy morale...have taken their toll on employees and patients. Use any alternate lab if you possibly can!
Thanks for letting us know.
Seconding that more perfect union does a story on this! It's brutal in the medical laboratory field.
Oh don't forget that LabCorp took over Providence's labs recently. Providence which is a non-profit company, LabCorp is for-profit. Never mind the fact that all the employees STILL wear Providence badges.
The fact that a For-Profit runs out of a Non Profit location is shady enough. Then add in the whole badge thing? My alarms bells where going off when I was in there.
It didn't help that the check-in staff told me why it actually happened (according to them). They claimed that it was because Medicaid (I live in a state with good public health insurance if you're poor) was only paying 60%. (And providers can NOT charge medicaid patients anything out of pocket typically.). Apparently the other health insurance companies decided to also only pay 60%. Then Medicaid decided to only pay 50%.
Next thing you know, some kind of shaddy buyout happens.
Remember, Medicaid is the ONLY public medical insurance that can do Anything about prices. Medicare can't really. And Medicaid basically can get whatever they want because major providers (hospitals etc) in my state pretty much HAVE to to take it.
I'm betting that LabCorp doesn't have to take it because they are forprofit and independent from Providence. They still are right now but.. who knows how long that will last.
And again, the whole Providence badges (And scrubs) is so shaddy.
Oh and Providence might be owned by Ascension.
I was talking with my father a few months back about the skyrocketing electric bills down here in our area of South Fl. We have a nuclear power plant, beachside that's maybe 30 miles from where my parents live, but apparently, our plant sends power up to Georgia, or the Carolinas, and then we have to pay to have power sent back to us from up there. Really made no sense at all to me.
Duke Energy at its best
Turkey Point? Pops worked there for 22yrs as a nuclear engineer.
The worst part is there’s nothing we can do. The levels of bureaucracy are insurmountable. Plus most of these are unelected officials appointed by their currupt daddies.
Now, I wanna investigate my own local energy utility. The rates are absolutely bonkers.
What is it?
@@lawsonj39 Puget Sound Energy.
@@PamperedDuchess All you have to do, according to John Oliver is type the name of the company and then add the words "Corruption" after that. Here: "Puget Sound Energy to Spend 1 Million on Misinformation." "Seattle Councilmember Sawant calls for investigation into Puget Sound Energy" "Attorney General opposes rate increase requests by Puget Sound Energy, Avista " This is what you are actually paying for.
All investor owned utilities are a scam 😂. They're guaranteed a profit margin no matter how poorly they perform. That's why the rates keep going up. All incentives are to invest in capital projects so they can justify raising rates
In 2009 Puget Sound Energy was sold to foreign investors led by Macquarie Group,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound_Energy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_Group
Gawddamn wikipedia... I think we all should donate a fiver to that beautiful resource!!!
I luv how much is on there...
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How much of the US is just owned by foreign investors I wonder?
Utilities... I would like the US department of defense to do an extensive study on the nation's security if utilities that provide power to millions are owner by foreign interests?
Neoliberals are absolutely f*cking braindead.
As an Ohioan, this boils by blood. The corruption is so deep, we should be seeing DeWine getting prosecuted and it looks like similar things are happening down in our South East neighbor as well. Such blatant corruption should be harshly punished, but will it?
Not until we unseat these jackasses who keep green lighting these rate hikes. Why should we have to pay for shitty business decisions whilst the stockholders make bank
Right because our fair district maps we passed a few years ago are still upon the air. And Dems gave us a fairly weak candidate to run against DeWine.
It won't :)
Doubt it. People keep focusing on the wrong stuff. Very good for business.
I looked at the breakdown of My rural electric bill and it shows that half of my electric bill was for FUEL charges, their charging us for fuel half of our bill is for fuel now multiply that by how many people have a power bill, there's no way their using that much fuel a month.
In England we have private utilities which were once in public ownership. The difference between the two is we now have fat cat CEOs earning millions in them and sky-high tariffs to pay for them (and their shareholders).
The commission sitting on the board and all the executives of the energy company need to go to jail for a long time. Also we need to own the company not Wallstreet. And last we need to recoup the excess payments.
me when my small 2 bed apartment gets $250+ electric bills
stop using 5000 watts of electricity to feed your entertainment addictions.
@@saturationstation1446 So, didn't watch the video, eh?
Stop drawing furry "explicit art" lmao I see you. Nah but seriously that's bogus utility companies are mafias
@@saturationstation1446Most people have Energy Savings appliances, and utility companies still find ways to raise rates.
@@saturationstation1446will do! as soon as you stop making uninformed ridiculous comments. have a great day!
I live in hot and humid Louisiana. I got tired putting $$ into my central air/heat and bought 3 window units and a smaller one for my guest bedroom.
I know this is not the issue of this video😬but I am saving SOOOO much $$ with these window units! Highest bill in August was $115 when it used to be in the $300’s!!! I send automatic $85/month in the summer and $50/month in colder months and always carry a credit. Thank goodness we have mild winters bc it does get cold but that’s why I have sweatpants!
I’m so sorry for these people being ripped off so badly, I don’t know what I would do! 🤷🏻♀️
made it less than 20 seconds into your video and was like "I bet this'll be about those scumbags at First Energy." and BAM! FIRST ENERGY! They're a bunch of bastards.
All electric companies in Texas have cut solar power buyback rates by 75% if you own rooftop solar panels 😢
Coping with the variability of solar energy is expensive.
Lies @@PistonAvatarGuy
@@pilotnamealreadytaken6035 Not lies. You literally need to build entirely separate, dispatchable energy systems in order to meet demand when solar isn't producing. Battery systems are one way to compensate for the lack of energy produced by solar during the night, or during cloudy days, or during the winter, but they're expensive and are very limited in the amount of energy that they can store, so it's natural gas generators that are most commonly used to pick up the slack for solar energy.
Grid interconnections also need significant upgrades in order to connect the ridiculous hodgepodge of energy generating systems that come with solar and wind energy. The IEA estimated that more than half a trillion dollars worth of upgrades need to be done every year for a decade in order to meet targets... which aren't being met and aren't likely to ever be met using wind and solar.
But of course, in CT ui approves all solar projects
Even if they cut the buyback rates by 100%, there's still value in reducing your electricity consumption. Rooftop solar doesn't need to meet 100% of your own needs. It just needs to cut your electricity bills in half.
The electric company don't even check the house meter. They just estimate because there is never snow tracks in the winter going to the meter.
Read your own meter. I can almost guarantee that they estimate "high".
Gas companies do the same thing, I switched to electric this winter and received a bill from the gas company for $360, my gas is shut off. They are crooks
😂
Meters have been transmitting wireless for years.
@@blueoval250 so what's the excuse for my bill? My house was built in 2007.
I live in CA. We bought a 9.6 kW solar system with 5.9 average peak hours of sunlight available for the year, each day. Our system, having 24, 400W panels, at as low as 80% efficiency (contract says 95% but of course the installer and seller are now out of business) should be producing nearly 17,000 kWh per year. It’s not even producing 13,000 kWh. Our Tru-up (what we owe based on the gap between usage vs production) is over $4,000 per year. Our system was over $50,000. Such horse$***.
I’m in Texas. I keep my thermostat at 55° in winter; 85° in summer, for my leaky old farmhouse. My bills average $130/mon due to a “delivery fee” recently added that almost doubles my bill. When we got freezing weather recently, I raised the thermostat to 70° for about ten days and got smacked with a giant bill of almost $400! It’s criminal, or should be!
I’m in the process of renovating and a priority is to get as close to off-grid as I’m legally allowed.
I live in San Diego. Our power industry has been an absolute $hit show since it was deregulated in 1996.
That is what people tend to forget. Republicans in the 80s and 90s worked to undermine the regulations that prevented this kind of fraud. The whole rolling blackout problems in the 90s were caused by this deregulation and corruption. They were artificial and not due to a lack of capacity. They were manipulating energy prices like a texas snow storm.
Deregulation and Enron screwed everything up and the industry has never, and will never, recover
California is full of neoliberal Democrats who divide people on the social issues while being fiscally conservative or fiscally moderate at best. Always looking out for the rich.
Highest electric rates in America...43 cents per kilowatt to start and a whopping 4 cents a kilowatt when they buy your excess energy from solar...Also they shifted prime time highest rates to evening time to make sure families pay the highest rates...used to be daytime when businesses were using the most...
This is not an accident
Omg! This video could not have come at a better time! I just paid $345.15 for 1 month of service for my 900sq ft cozy little house. I keep the heat set at 66 degrees. We've had a mild winter here so I've turned it off a lot this year, but still got a huge bill. Wtf is going on with AEP??
Sounds like you’re wasting enormous amounts of electricity. I also have AEP, my house is slightly bigger and it’s less than $100 every month.
@blueoval250 my house could definately be better insulated but that doesnt explain why my bills before the increase were around $150-$175 in the winter at the most and the last 2 months, it's been $345 each month.
I’m in Kansas City also in a small house and my bill for 2 months is $630 !! Literally outrageous - I keep my temp the same as yours - this place just probably has poor insulation and I can’t do anything about that
@@brennajones8296 let's hope for an early spring to get the cost down at least a little. Corporate greed is pushing more people towards poverty. Crazy how we do things here.
I live in Shreveport and have AEP as well. We had one week of really cold weather in January, and my bill was $327 for a 1000 square foot 1950s house that I got spray foam insulation underneath and a new high efficiency heat pump. My house is all electric but it's ridiculous. I called them, and they said that's what the meter read. They're about to install smart meters that we have to pay for.😮
I live in Wisconsin and have been harassed for 17 years now. WE ENERGY wants my property and I refuse to sell so WE ENERGY has been making my life as miserable as they can so I would move. WE ENERGY owns the cops which are corrupt. Everything is being covered up. WE ENERGY was able to expand in 2007 and they just keep wanting to expand buying all the property around them. From 2010 to 2013 I was harassed 24/7 for 3 solid years. I was not able to sleep. From the extreme anxiety I now have a twisted colon. I was to the point of almost committing suicide because I couldn't handle the extreme harassing noise. I finally went to see a doctor who put me on anxiety and depression pills for years. The utility companies are pure EVIL. I to this very day am harassed. My parents built this home that I lived at since I was 5 years old. WE ENERGY burns coal by the lake next to Lake Michigan and I just don't understand why they need all the property they have bought. They will never say. I think WE ENERGY is buying as much property as they can and then resell it for a profit. This is just what I think.
I'm in CA. Our electricity bill has been huge. Lights only on a few hours at night. No TV except on weekends. Fridge, oven, air set on 78-82% , and still a big bill. And we have solar panels.
So we got solar battery and more panels. Last week we were off grid 2 days, fully running everything in our house and still fed the grid the extra. This summer I will be able to stay cool in my home and not get hit with a scorching electricity bill.
State owned non-profit energy companies are needed. Eminent Domain these guys for 50c on the $, as backpay for gouging customers
Public Utilities, not privatized criminal cartels.
What are you, some kind of commie?
/s
If it's owned by a human it will eventually be corrupted doesn't matter if it's non-profit or not they will eventually find a way to screw you over so that they could become rich fat CEOs. We just can't trust each other anymore
Bad idea. Go look at South Africa or Argentina
@@WIentertainmentnope. I live in North jersey, power company is a co-op non-profit one, and our rates have gone up minimally over the years. With excellent service.
Most of the public service commissioners are taking money from the various utilities and approving the rate increases. The system is corrupt. We need to change the public service commission appointment process, audit the electric utilities.
Agreed. The CPUC should NOT be appointed by our corrupt governor Newsom. Also, they should not have any prior affiliation with the utilities.
The blatant corruption is disgusting. That spokesperson should be looking for a new job.
All energy companies should be CO-OPs working to serve the people. Electricity is an essential modern service and should be made at the lowest possible cost to the people and for zero profit.
The last bit about the contract we don't really think about is pretty big to me. It aligns a lot with some other kinda invisible (or social) contracts that are being broken, police with the public, politicians with their electorate, the intolerant asking for tolerance for their intolerance. Its not a firm contract, it's a cease fire, a peace treaty. If that treaty is broken, how many incidents will it take before the citizens demand the private companies out and these public services become public controlled again?
Excellent point.
So you prefer to support the Marxist/Communists/Socialists/Nazi/Mafia/Fascists/Islam/Freemasonic/LGBTPFQ perversions/Violent gangs/Satanist/Idol Worshippers/Republican Party death cult over the Marxist/Communists/Socialists/Nazi/Mafia/Fascists/Islam/Freemasonic/LGBTPFQ perversions/Violent gangs/Satanists/Idol worshippers/Democratic Party death cult?
Public utilities should be publicly owned, not in the stock market sense, but in the co-op sense. Their purpose is to provide what has become a critical service, and to abuse the people who depend on this service to put money into the pockets of shareholders should not be legal.
We have a co-op and trust me, they are no better. Our last bill was $570 for a small 3 br home. My wife and I are disabled and on fixed incomes. 570 to us is a small fortune.
Good work ~call these people out and hold them accountable-- they should be forced to PAY BACK their customers
Householder was the state representative for Ohio's 72nd district and was a two-time Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party
Unsurprising. Didn't even have to look it up. All of them are repubs
You could be talking about Georgia Power just as much as First Energy. Georgia Power has been building new reactors at Vogtle since 2009. They are already are 7 years behind the scheduled completion date. To make matters worse, they got permission from our own PSC to front load rate payers paying for all of these delays and overruns. The project is 7 years late (and counting) and 17 billion over budget which rate payers are having to cover, while investors still get their returns. No monopoly utility should have to appease investors who are more than willing to squeeze rate payers. Our PSC is an elected position, yet because people often seem to vote against their own interests (for people with an R after their name) rather than know WHAT it is they are voting for. The Georgia PSC has repeatedly given Georgia Power what they want. They have made home solar hard to do and in fact tag another $30 per month to homes with solar and don't pay market rates for extra power home solar generates, because of...fairness??? Until people wake up to the fact that your own PSC makes decisions that will affect your day to day, nothing will change.
Unit 3 went online last year and I think unit 4 is later this year. Construction started in 2013, but yes they were delayed and costs ballooned partially due to Westinghouse going bankrupt back in 2017. I also seem to remember some lawsuits against contractors not doing something correctly early on which caused some early delays.
Source: Wikipedia and memory
Vote blue, no matter who is what I have come to realize over the last 10 years
@@xredhead7135xFrom Wikipedia
" Two additional units utilizing Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were under construction since 2009, with Unit 3 being completed in July 2023.[9][10][11] This last report blames the latest increase in costs on the contractor not completing work as scheduled."
@@xredhead7135xThe answer is to vote for a non-corporate owned politician. Here in Caifornia, Newsom is blue and has given the green light for our CPUC to approve every rate hike that the utilities have asked for. PG&E has made huge campaign contributions for him.
When these companies pushed for deregulation the promised it would eliminate the utility's monopolies, increase competition, lower costs, and improve service.
Might try some WD40 on those "rusty" promises!
My electric bill went from $32. $127. That's 396.75% in 3 years!!!
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and PG&E have the power Monopoly and have asked for and gotten several unrealistic rate increases! We are facing the same type of situation and I’m wondering if it’s for the same kind of reasons. It’s all about their shareholders and CEOs are making an outrageous amount of money off the backs of our citizens who none of us can really afford that kind of increase all the time it’s gotten so bad it’s ridiculous! I say follow the money and we’re gonna find the corruption! I think you for covering and bringing this to our attention even though we are not in West Virginia but this is happening in northern California as well!
Time to look into who is taking the bribes from these big companies and who issues the bribes. Publish those names and let the people decide what happens.
I sold residential solar in Arizona for 4 years and I cannot tell you just how crooked the utility companies are. In the Metro Phoenix area it's either SRP or APS and if you're with one, that's the one you got. They have strict control over their territory and do not allow you to switch. The two main utilities are managed by the AZ Corporation Commission but is heavily influenced by campaign ads, misinformation and contributions by the utility companies, so those elected to the commission are essentially paid shills and do what the utility companies want. It's a true anti-trust racket but hasn't really been regulated.
They're so corrupt that APS developed their own residential solar program that is similar to other companies offers except it only results in a bill credit of like $50-$100 a month even though other companies can save way more. APS actually loses money on their solar systems but it locks in those houses for decades so they don't lose "as much" as losing all the power demand from that house from other companies.
Pretty sure PG&E is still on federal probation for mass murder.(Paradise, CA fire)I think they filled bankruptcy and then continued to raise rates to make the customers pay for the payouts.
Nebraska has not for profit publicly owned electric utilities and they have the same problems. My local utility pays huge sums of money to lobbyists. Why would a publicly owned not for profit utility hire lobbyists ???
Only one in seven people get their power from publicly owned utilities. The rest of us are subject to the whims of profiteering, deferred maintenance, and lack of any control over where power comes from. Public utility customers PAY LESS AND HAVE BETTER SERVICE UPTIME, as well as having a voice in grid sourcing.
i'm lucky to be in an area with a municipal power utility, and hearing stories like this makes me appreciate that a lot more - everyone deserves to know their bill money is going to an organization that represents their interests and their needs
I can't understand how Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures allow rate payers to have the burden of bribes and fines and not the shareholder's equity.
You can’t have a situation where the government grants monopolies to private companies unless they are strictly regulated for public use rather than for wealthy investors.
That's happening in MT with Northwestern Energy, too. They've requesting a 25%+ increase in rates, which is coming on the heels of previous rate request just a few years ago. Meanwhile, they've been working for the last 6 years to repeatedly attempt to get the state Legislature to pass bills that would do an end run around both consumers and the PSC to pass on additional increases to the customer via legislation, all in an attempt to get us to prop up their coal interests. Additionally they've been behind legislative attempts to decrease solar energy investment, lower payments to solar panel owners, and fight other green initiatives. We're a heavily Republican controlled state right now and most of them appear to be working for NWE rather than their constituents.
Excellent journalism 👏 👌
Not really. He forgot to mention that Obama PROMISED to "shut down coal" and the Sierra Club has been suing power companies to force them to switch from coal to save the environment. The war on coal is what caused this to happen. I'm not denying corruption but the Democrats have run on forcing wind and solar. These are NOT cheaper options. That is why they have to be subsidized. If you look at the graph in the beginning you will notice a HUGE drop in energy costs in 2019 and a huge spike in 2020. 2019 is when the U.S. produced more gas and oil than ever before while at the same time reducing emissions. Much of this is caused by policy.
This is why I'm so grateful to live in a town where we have municipal electricity and municipal fiber internet (One of the best in the country, by the way). My electric and internet costs are very reasonable and the service is impeccable.
Where do you live?
Meanwhile in Mexico it's 10$/month to power a 2200ft² brick home-where it snows on occasion and gets hot in the summer. Still capitalism but this public service is regulated in particular. Difference in greed and corruption.
Love everything More Perfect Union does! My only request, spend more time on solutions. Preferably a direct relation, 10% problem, 90% solutions. The only way we can fix all of these problems is to spend more time on solutions. Besides when you spend more time on the problems, you feel weighted down. When you spend more time on solutions, the weight feels lifted.
But if the left came up with solutions then they wouldn't be able to get you to vote for them. They secure your vote by complaining, telling you that they will fix it but never fixing it. The left has been gaining political power across the board in the past 4 elections. There was no red wave in 22 and the left has been winning more local elections yet these price hikes are still happening. Why? Maybe you aren't getting the full story? Remember when Obama promised to end coal? Biden promised to shut down oil drilling? Sierra club has been suing power companies and forcing them to convert to gas and renewables? Remember that? ALL these things suppress innovation and investment and it cost billions to convert power plants. This is what YOU as a leftists voted for! This is what you wanted.
Time for a Class Action Lawsuit. Call Erin Brokovich. She's still in the business of going after these companies.
I don’t understand why our utilities are so expensive. I have relatives who live in Lexington & Georgetown,Ky. The electricity bill is usually around $50-60 dollars per month year round. We live on a few acres and have a small Doublewide and our electric bill was $600 dollars for this month.
Why?
Same here in deep Southern Illinois. All utilities and insurance plus everything else has gone up extremely high. Monthly bills keep getting higher no matter how conservative we are. We have no cable no internet and as far as entertainment goes it's within our own backyards. Now I am thankful yet how much further can AMERICANS be pushed.
@@mombasham Your state isn't conservative though. It's deep blue. State elections matter.
I live in a 650 square foot apartment in the Portland area in Oregon. My bill more than doubled when the rates went up. Half of my bill is fees. Not the actual electricity I'm using, but fees based on my kwph usage. I can't afford it. And this is after I got a 25% reduction on what I thought was my entire bill, but is actually only on the actual energy usage. That discount is due to my very low income status.
The company I get electricity from, which I have no ability to change due to service areas and because the apartment complex I live in uses whatever company they use. You can't change it.
This is ridiculous. We need renewable, green energy. If I hadn't gotten help from a non-profit, I'd have had to heat only one room and stayed in there foe weeks at a time due to the weather. We had ice for a week.
Non-profits don't exist to subsidize corrupt utility companies who squeeze profits out of the poor even if they freeze or succumb to heat exhaustion. Another example of the government letting corporations put profit above people.
We need a straight up revolution. So many people refusing to pay bills or going off grid if they can. We need the necessities of life like energy, clean water, etc. to be managed by the state at zero profit. And we need corporate lobbyists banned, and people taking bribes in any form prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Write your mayors, governers, congressmen. F*ck this.
We had a chance in Maine to implement Pine Tree Power (a citizen-operated utility alternative) and it failed at the ballot. Super disappointed in the folks around me.
People are so easily fooled. Pretty dumb, if you ask me. Too bad.
That dude's mullet is awesome. Professional in the front party in the back.
Hell yeah brother
It's time to take the power back!
I am impressed with this journalism. Keep up the good work.
It's the same here in California. Our Governor along with the CPUC have given PG&E everything they wanted. We're retired and on a fixed income as well but everyone we know, young included are having a challenging time as well. Then there's the insurance companies, doesn't matter if home, vehicle or health....well, their right there with the electric companies no matter where you live. The future is looking a bit bleak for many people.....remember to breathe
You live in California. Of course the electricity cost is outrageous. They got rid of cheap coal and nuclear, lowered water levels at hydroelectricity dams, and of course your electricity bill also goes to subsidize uneconomic rooftop solar net metering "customers".
@@gregorymalchuk272 Is that why PG&E has just recorded record profits for its shareholders?
This is so much more sophisticated than my state. In FL they just outright buy the governor with campaign contributions (read: bribes) and lay back while preferential legislation rains down on them.
My brother is a civil engineer that specialized in hydrology and water projects.
One of his projects was to work with the watershed on a major dam that provides power for a major city--it usually actually provides about 70% of power for that city.
He gave me a tour of the damn once and showed me the 4 hydro generators of which only three were running.
I asked him if the fourth was under maintenance and he said no, they only ever run 3 because if they ran all 4 power generators it would drop the cost of energy below what the private power cartels could compete with.
So basically the PUD fixes prices because giving you too cheap of power would hurt the private cartels over charging you for power.
...
Deep in the rabbit hole: as a physicist I can tell you there are several versions of functional fusion that you will never see because the most corrupt assholes on earth are the energy/technology cartels.
I live in Ohio, known for it's corrupt electric service negotiations complete with kickbacks.
Love the content, but beyond that…. Your editing/script/use and choice of b-Roll are really well done. Timing is tight and it flows. Bravo.
One of the B-Roll had my great grandfather in it from the coal mines, I use to have that same panorama photo before my pops died.
Would love to get that photo some how.
Thanks for keeping it boring! People are distracted by the world's problems and how big they are which makes them often forget they can make a change locally!
Our county commissioners won't allow an electric co-op in our rural Colorado town. Somebody is putting $$$ in their pockets.
My local energy company is First Energy and is charging me $10.11/kwt. We installed solar panels which feed back into the grid...we are now using less energy but we will pay $306 in April and we are on the Budget billing plan! Jumping $61/month 😡
I work in the german utilites sector, and while our system is far from perfect, we did manage to get rid of the natural oligopoly for energy suppliers.
What we did was to break up those big energy companies into seperate entities, one "supplier" who buys and sells energy to consumers, and one "distributor" who is in charge of the physical grid and largely the distribution of custumer data. Now new suppliers can enter the market and the distributors can't discriminate between their "sister company" and competitors, because the communication and the rules for market entry are highly regulated.
While this approach brought a bulk of regulation and some inefficiencies, at least we can freely choose between different suppliers.
I have to say though, making the utilities sector public makes a lot of sense. Privatisation of public infrastructure was a big trend here in the 90's and today we have a railway system that is worse than it was 20 years ago, just to name one example.
Yeah the problem really is once you have an essential service that has to operate as a monopoly tied to a profit motive, then you've set up a system where the consumer gets exploited.
I live in California. I can't choose to not use PG&E, which means I'm stuck paying whatever they say I have to pay.
You in Germany have some of the most expensive electricity on earth. Great success.
To make it better, foreign companies are allowed to compete on the German market. I switched to a Norwegian supplier company, and my price went from a proposed 70(!) cents per kwh to 23 cents. That's real competition right there! To clarify for all non-German residents: There is a price cap subsidy for electricity at 30 cents pr kwh. But by switching, I saved the state a lot of money in subsidies to a greedy energy company.
@@gregorymalchuk272 you are not wrong, but keep in mind, that roughtly 40% of the price of electricity in germany is taxes. There are expensive incentives for renewable energies that push the price.
The strongly enforced swich to renewables is the biggest contributor to our energy bills.
Thank you for bringing attention to this issue. A very professional but entertaining video.
My local PUD raised the rates 3 years in a row.
Last year, I started a DIY solar system. Very cheap 4000 dollar system. 2700 dollars after the federal incentives.
I now save 50 to 75 dollars per month. It also became my backup power when the grid goes down. 😊
Check their math...
I just found a 0.67 discrepancy in my bill. I called and spent over an hour with two representatives and then their supervisor to have it removed.
After the hassle they gave me i reviewed my most recent years statements and all 12 of them have mathematical errors!
They are counting on us NOT checking and tossing our statement.
Think about it a few cents error over 100,000 bills add up.😮
Electricity is privately owned. It is a public necessity it should never be privately owned. Just removing the profit motive should reduce prices immediately by 20%...It should be a public utility, never a private company where profit has to be their FIRST priority.
Public utilities can become money pits run for the benefit of the beauracracy as private companies. There are benefits and drawbacks. I personally like coops since they tend to be responsive to the customer/owner, while not being governmental agencies.
Money going to public entities never goes to the self interest of a few like Capitalism does it goes back to the public and their interests. Unless you can show me an example of private money going back to public interest and not onto the bottom line of the owners?
@@paraax yep, coops are the future but will take a lot of work to educate the public.
Dude. YOU are my favorite reporter out of just about anyone and everyone else. Maybe it's the mullet? Maybe its the clear sense that you're genuine. IDK -but plz keep it up
hell yeah brother
Remember, not a single holdings company cares about a single customer. They're buying utility companies as fast as they can. And they barely reinvest in their infrastructure. Connecticut proves it. Anyone with Wallingford electric rarely has outages and pays less than anyone nearby.
I am in the Mountains in South Central Pennsylvania Somerset Pa and First Energy is our electric company. And you are speaking real Truth. We live on Social Security alone and it's hard to keep the lights on because the only thing we use natural gas for is our furnace. Thanks for bringing this to light.
Remember that dude a couple elections back that was in a democratic primary... He was named McMillian, I think. He was pushing, "The Rent Is Too Damn High" Party.
Humans are just what corporations make money from. Cows, owned by a rancher, are more highly regarded and valued.
Nothing public should be privately owned
Thank you for all your hard work and research.
I'm stunned that Joe mansion, a West Virginia senator who advocates for coal plants, was not mentioned in this video.
Joe Mansion's corruption relating to coal mining and factories is well known.
Glaring ommission noted here too! Corruption needs to be aided and abbeted.
I talked to an analyst of energy and they said there is an over abundance of energy in the US. Usually that would mean lower prices because of supply and demand but the opposite is happening. I wish i had asked more about that. I made a short but now i feel like its unfinished.
I live in a city with two power companies, you don't get to pick who you get though; it's determined based on where you live. Both of them are for-profit companies.
They both just announced an 18% increase. Then days later after we had a winter storm that had over 300,000 people without power for a day or more they are saying they want to increase the rates AGAIN by about that much to pay for the damage the storm did.
The first 18% was a HUGE increase by itself. Another one would mean almost a 40% increase in less then two years!!! That is just insane.
And it looks like the local utilities commission is going to allow them to do it.
I have no clue if there is the same thing going on with the commission and lobbying that happened in Virginia but, based on the history of utilities in this city, I wouldn't be surprised.
--I worked for the water bureau (actually a "public owned" utility) years ago. It was during a time period where they had converted the billing system and people were not getting bills for up to 9 months. (They were supposed to get them every 3.) It turned out that the company that was providing the system knew there was going to be massive issues with it because it's programmed for every 2 months; but they assured the city goverment that they knew how to make it do every 3 instead. 9 months after go live, it STILL was not working properly for every customer.
----and there were other problems with the program also. It was so buggy even 9 months after go live. I ended up on a bug reporting team for awhile.
It turned out that someone in charge at the water bureau got paid a TON of money by the company providing the software to tell everyone else that the system would work fine. Then she vanished at the first sign of trouble with it.
Nationalize Everything!!!
That's only a good idea if your electeds aren't already stealing from you. Or if you actually get to choose your nominees.