Technology innovation benefiting all consumers is important to us. Seeing that the benefits of competition flows to all consumers is important to us. A national poll conducted February 17 by Moore Information confirmed, among other things, that a majority of voters believe electric restructuring will only mean higher rates for the ordinary consumer and bigger profits for utilities. These concerns are well founded. For example, California State Senator Steven Peace, one of the principal authors of the California restructuring legislation admitted that competition is intended to benefit industrial customers, not residential customers.
Electric cooperatives are private, independent utility businesses owned by the consumers they serve.
Let me put this in some perspective. Second, electric cooperatives serve predominantly rural areas - the most isolated, rugged, difficult to serve areas in the country. Co-ops serve around 40 percent of the rural meters in Texas. Co-ops serve close to 80 percent of the rural meters in Georgia, and in Oklahoma, it is around 75 percent. That we serve predominately residential consumers in rural areas defines the priorities of electric cooperatives in this debate about restructuring of the electric utility industry.