Date: 2014-07-10
Speaker: SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: New York

Madam Chair. many of my colleagues may be familiar with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. also known as FERC. But I imagine few of my colleagues have experienced an agency with the accountability that we have experienced in the Hudson Valley recently. or have seen how a few unelected bureaucrats can wreak havoc. literally. on our utility bills and those of our struggling neighbors without regard for basic facts. like how those people use energy or how those bills will be paid or whether people can even afford to pay these bills after the worst winter and the highest energy costs we have seen in a generation. This egregious bureaucratic overreach has to stop. In January. FERC approved a plan to create what is called a new capacity zone in the Hudson Valley. Now. this new zone would arbitrarily impose an unprecedented $230 million increase in energy costs in my region for just the first year alone. and nearly $500 million in increased costs over the first 3 years. This is absolutely outrageous and unnecessary. No one elected anyone in the FERC. and they are accountable to no one. But their decisions affect all of us and. in this case. affect the struggling ratepayers of the Hudson Valley. Initial estimates suggest that customers throughout the Hudson Valley could see their utility bills go up by as much as 10 percent. This. again. after the worst winter and highest energy costs in a generation. Every single day. I am hearing from my neighbors about how awful this decision is and their fears of how they will pay for their energy. I heard from Russ in Putnam Valley. who told me that. as a senior on a fixed income. this is an increase that he simply cant afford. He is expected to pay $120 more over the next year. and he doesnt have it. And it is not just families that will be hit. Schools. like those in Carmel. are scrambling to find ways to cut budgets that are already stretched thin. And our large employers. like IBM. estimate that this FERC decision could cost just IBM up to $10 million over the next year. Now. you might think that any agency with that kind of destructive power might be accountable to someone. but apparently you would be wrong. Last week. I received a letter from Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro stating that. in the 20 years that he has been in elected office. "I have never interacted with a less accessible. less accountable government entity. seemingly impervious to legislative and public scrutiny." I couldnt agree more. and we have that agreement across party lines and across levels of government. The new capacity zone is an unnecessary and destructive step designed to fix a problem that we can fix in so many other ways. and we have to rein in these unaccountable Washington bureaucrats. So my amendment is simple. It would specifically prohibit funds from going towards allowing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to enforce the decision that created the new capacity zone. Because a runaway agency like this needs a serious wakeup call. and this amendment will let FERC know that they are accountable to folks like Russ and the people in Carmel and the seniors in my district and to this Congress. I reserve the balance of my time.