Evening star., 1953-09-11
Public Power Trust

note that your columniSt Lowell
Mellett is taking up the cudgels to help
the American Public Power Association
blast at the Virginia Electric Power Co.
over its fast write-on on its Roanoke
River hydroelectric project. The pub
lie power boys have been badly mauled
in this matter.
They tried for years to squeeze
Vepco out Of this choice water power
site, which had been acquired prior to
the New Deal. Having lost the last
rounds of this battle in the courts and
the Federal Power Commission and
having had some OF their skulduggery
exposed in the Readers Digest, their
present Illustration with this fast write
off is understandable, but the contrast
between what Vepco gets and what
the taxpayer would have to pay for
public power development Of this site
is so extreme that it seems rather naive
for the public power boys to make an
issue of this matter.
Under public power development of
this site the Treasury would have to
foot the bill for the entire $33 million
cost plus the cost Of the necessary
transmission facilities, etc, to connect
with favored customers lodging their
taxes on Government financed cooper
ative distribution systems. Under the
fast write which so ScandaliZeS Mr..
Mellett the company can postpone part
of its taxes to the extent of part of the
cost, but after the five years are up it
starts paying larger taxes until the
postponed taxes are made up.
Perhaps Mr.. Mellett can tell us when
the IVA is going to start repaying to
the Treasury some of the hundreds of
millions it has obtained from the Treas
ury to finance its operations in the
Tennessee Valley. Surely, it should be
able to stand on its own feet by this
time. But every year it comes back
for more money for more dams, ETC..
and now it is building huge steam gen.
Grating units. In the meantime the
general taxpayer foots the bill for the
interest on this money, and, of course,
has to forgo any taxes at all on this
huge business. If the customers of
these Federal projects had to pay these
costs plus the State and local taxes
that the customers Of the private COM
panies pay, this public power would no
longer be cheap and they would not be
willing to put up with the brown-outS
and otherwise poor service they get.
What really is needed is an inveSti-
CATION of the public power trust with
their lobbyists on and off the public
payroll. yet all supported directly and
indirectly by the taxpayer, their pub
licity apparatus to grind out handouts,
their promotional methods and pres
sure politicking in connection with new
projects, their phony accounting meth
ods. rate juggling and misuse of funds
collected from customers.
These public power boys are the real
hogs at the tax trough, and how they
hate to share even a tidbit! Only if
they can continue to delude the public
as to the real cost Of public power and
perpetuate the myth of wicked private
companies can this bureaucratic racket
be perpetuated. So they wrap them
selves in togas of Righteousness and viii
lily the private companies for sins COM
mitted quarter of century ago and
practices eliminated under SEC regu-
lation. The amazing thing is how they
are entirely willing to condone Just
about every practice they criticize the
private companies for, so long as it is
not committed for private profit. The
public power trust is the last refuge of
the zealots who would destroy the profit
system and substitute an unavoidable
or rather much less efficient authori-
tartan Utopia. with themselves in the
drivers seat.
have only scorn for columnists like
Lowell Mellett. who copy these public
power boys handouts when they should
and probably do know better.
Parke Payne.