Posted on 02/21/2011 7:07:08 PM PST by aquila48
The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. The parts everyone is focusing on have to do with the right to collectively bargain being stripped from public sector unions (except for the unions that supported Walker running for Governor). Focusing on this misses a large part of what the bill would do.... The bill would allow for the selling of state-owned heating/cooling/power plants without bids and without concern for the legally-defined public interest.
(Excerpt) Read more at rortybomb.wordpress.com ...
I like most of what I see. The rest doesn't matter so much.
I would presume that the idea is to get the state and the cities out of the power business, which they had no business getting into in the first place.
The bill says that they should be sold in the best interests of the state. Presumably that means a) get rid of costly facilities; and b) get the best price for them.
Presumably the wording is intended to avoid costly and time-consuming bidding processes, which can go on for years. As long as the properties are put up for sale in such a way that they get the best reasonable bids for them, that should suffice.
That’s just my guess. But often the “bidding process” can be time consuming, wasteful, and actually end up not getting the highest bids anyway. Better to put someone responsible in charge and let him use his best judgment.
The union fight is most important to us nationwide. The rest not so much.
Your first problem if you DO NOT HAVE such a clause in the law is that even if you have bids the losing party(s) will sue to have the process reviewed by a court.
That will delay the sale for a substantial period of time ~ in the meantime the winner and the losers will be "forced" to make a deal completely outside the state's control or knowledge, and finally the judge will let the state sell to the winner, who will then divide up the business, or make swaps, with the others.
You eliminate that sort of thing with no-bid contracts.
“No bid” does not automatically equal “give away”. You’d have to know more, such as, is there a minimum fair price that must be met before selling. I can imagine it would be a benefit to the State not to have to spend money to operate such things, but rather collect taxes from the new owners.
What is legally defined public interest? Sounds like commie talk.
Pray for America
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/business/116180144.html
Please do research BEFORE commenting about subjects you know little or nothing about. The link above describes pretty well what is going on. The state disposing of many old EPA NON-COMPLIANT coal plants, retiring debt in the process, and getting the state OUT of the energy generating business, where it has no business.
The previous Doyle Administration had already decided to replace the UW coal plant with a HUGELY expensive biomass plant. Walker killed that as soon as he took office, saving the state 75MILLION $....
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency began an investigation to determine whether plants across the state at UW campuses and prisons were operating in violation of the Clean Air Act. In addition, new air pollution standards being implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to result in the need to for older coal-fired power plants in the state and around the country to add pollution controls or transition to run on cleaner-burning natural gas.
One year ago, the Doyle administration concluded that five more state-run power plants were violating federal clean air regulations, bringing the total number of plants violating the Clean Air Act to eight.
Similar findings contributed to plans to stop burning coal at the Charter Street heating plant that serves the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Doyle administration planned to replace coal with a combination of natural gas and biomass, but the Walker administration last month pulled the plug on the biomass portion of the project. That would result in net savings for taxpayers of about $75 million, according to the Department of Administration
I’m not sure what the details are, but if the State is running these utilities, they need to shed that responsibility ASAP. A lot of places have PUDs, Public Utility Districts with elected officials to run them, but they are separate from the State government and operate under their own defined rules.
This is likely something that the State should never have touched in the first place, and the fix is not going to be easy.
Thanks so much for the education!
Knowing is half the battle!
Wow, thanks!
I would imagine these energy plants are also full of highly tenured Govt PUblic Union employees and retires with a large retirement and health care Liability
they might have to sell them for 1.00 in order for someone to take that liability with it....
Consider the source. This is a hit piece, pure and simple, as shown by comments in the second sentence about which unions supported the Gov. Ask Chris Mathews about those “facts”.
Consider the source. This is a hit piece, pure and simple, as shown by comments in the second sentence about which unions supported the Gov. Ask Chris Mathews about those “facts”.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Actually it’s written right in there...I read it. No-bid sales of public utilities would be authorized...WOW.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suddenly becoming a liberal...but this looks bad. Who sets the price?
Thanks for your input regarding the story...
It’s a shame you’re also an a—hole. The gist of my comment was a question as to whether anyone in freeperland knew why they would want to sell assets without a bidding process. I didn’t know of any good reasons, so I asked. Some of the answers I’ve gotten (including yours) seem to make sense.
So follow your own advice and read things carefully BEFORE throwing out insults - they have a way of boomeranging.
How about one dollar. Sounds fair to me. Government has no business in the power business.
Well, if it’s so bad, the DEMOCRATS can come back to Madistan and argue their case.
“Consider the source. This is a hit piece, pure and simple, as shown by comments in the second sentence about which unions supported the Gov. Ask Chris Mathews about those “facts”.”
Whether it’s a hit piece is besides the point. I’m not worried about the piece, I’m trying to understand why they would put language in the bill that allows no-bid contracts. As I said, at first blush, it raises suspicions of backroom deals, and opens one up to criticism and demagoguery.
So, back to the question, why would they put in that language? I’m not being critical, because from what I’ve seen of Walker, he seems a good guy - just curious.
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