Evening star., 1935-03-28
Magnate Says He Could Cut
Costs 100000 by
Using Method.
REGULATION CLAUSE
DELETION is SOUGHT
Board Members Called to Change
Act to Conform to Recent
Decision.

duce electric rates in his territory by
$4,000. 600 year under the same con-
ditions that prevail for the Govern
nent's Tennessee Valley experiment
was voiced today by Louis H. Egan,
president of the Union Electric Light
g. Power Co. of st. Louis.
Severely criticizing the Tennessee
Valley Authority's method of figuring
power plant costs, the utilities execu-
tive asserted to the House Interstate
Commerce Committee:
THE trouble with the T. v. A.
yardstick Is that it is made with rub
ber 1t is not feet long: it is 2 feet
long sometimes and feet long other
times"
Meanwhile, the House Military Com
mittee met to plug some of the gaps
in the T. v. A. act. A Democratic
member-Representative May of Ken
tucky-declared he would do all he
could to smash the T. v. A. power
yarCStlck.
Cites Cost Procedure.
Egan related to the committee mem
bers and the crowded chamber how
he said the Government saw fit to al
locate items in Muscle Shoals electric
generation and asked:
DO any OF you gentlemen imagine
that / could not reduce electric rates
in my territory under such conditions?
tell you very frankly that could re-
duce them to the extent of about
$2.000,000 year if that condition ex-
isted."
Standing before huge map show
ing his company's territory over Mis-
souri, and parts of Iowa and Illinois.
Egan opposed the Wheeler -Rayburn
bill to abolish utility holding COM
panies in 1910 and subject all utilities
to governmental regulation.
1T has been intimated to the COM
mittee here" he said, that you are
getting fed up on hearing so much
about these different utility companies.
I may say for my part that it is
mutual"
Gives Regulation Set-Up.
He first reminded the committee
that the st. Louis company. sub
sidiary of the North American Co.,
was already regulated "by City Coun-
ellis, two State Public Service Commits
sions, the War Department and the
Federal Power Commission
He urged the committee to throw
title two of the bill out of the window" "
That provides for regulating operating
companies.
The committee called members of
the T. v. A. Board for hearing on
half dozen measures to expand and
change the act in view of a ruling by
Federal Judge Grubb at Birmingham,
Ala. that T. v. A. is without authority
to sell electricity generated at its
plants along the Tennessee River.
Representative May said he planned
to muster labor. the power and coal
industries and everyone else whose
throat T. v. A. is trying to cut into
an attack on the proposed amend
ments.
Calls Plan Wasteful.
1T. v. A. is a steady, sure and un-
trend toward socialization, /"
he said. 1T is a reckless and un-
necessary waste of public funds"
Coming from a district in which
coal mining is a leading industry,
May said he regarded T. v. A. as
lone of the most vicious competitors
coal will ever have" T. v. A., he
added, will not be "a labor employ
ing concern and coal always will be. "
He advised Chairman McSwain not
to have any hopes of winning up the
hearing in a day or SO because much
would be said in opposition.
McSwain himself has a measure
which is an effort to ward of in
junction against T. v. A. and to
give the agency definite powers to
sell electricity and to acquire gene
rating and distributing facilities
within transmission distance of its
dams.
The authority would be permitted
also to include resale rate schedules
in any contracts for the sale of its
power. The McSwain measure was
understood to have some measure of
approval, at least of the T. v. A.
board.
The Ohio Chamber of Commerce,
meanwhile. was challenged by Presi-
dent Roosevelt to prove assertions
credited to it that agents for the T.
v. A. we're urging Ohio industries to
move into the Tennessee Valley to
obtain cheaper power.
In a letter to Representative Thorn,
Democrat, of Ohio, the President de-
MED the T. v. A. was soliciting indus
tries in Ohio "or any other region"
to move and charged that special
interests are constantly attempting to
thwart" the Tennessee Valley pro-
gram