(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Energy Reform Act, the Legislature’s newest version of right of first refusal energy legislation, is being pushed by its largest energy transmission company, ATC.
A new report from MacIver Institute shows that ATC is owned by WEC Energy Group (60%), Wisconsin Power & Light (16.3%), Madison Gas & Electric (3.5%), Allete Transmission (8%) and various municipal utilities (12%).
Those companies are investor-owned utilities that are for-profit companies that have been granted monopolistic powers by the state that would be strengthened by the new law.
Between 28% and 33% of the stock of the companies that own ATC are held by Vanguard Group, BlackRock and State Street, according to the MacIver report.
In all, the top 10 investors hold 50% of WEC stock, 56% of Alliant stock and 50% of Xcel Energy.
“The reason ROFR doesn’t get dead and stay dead is because consumers are not in charge,” wrote MacIver Policy Analyst Michael Lucas. “You might think that the State is in charge, or the PSC, or even FERC. But no, the real boss isn’t in the utility headquarters, the lobby of the capitol or even in the state. The real boss is far away on a warm, sunny beach––a little beach called Wall Street.”
While some Republican lawmakers are supporting the new bill, others have pushed back on it, calling it a repeat of the previous bill without significant changes.
The new bill would include bidding controls and restrictions for interstate and intrastate electrical transmission lines rather than simply allowing those companies already operating in Wisconsin to exclusively bid first before other companies can bid on the work.
The bill is scheduled to first head to the Energy and Utilities Committee before Speaker Robin Vos hopes to have it heard on the Assembly floor later this month.
“These are not Wisconsin-based companies humbly employed in serving their fellow Wisconsinites, and carefully regulated by the watchful eye of government––they are profit-driven firms, reassured by their status as guaranteed monopolies, perverting Wisconsin law to suit their purposes,” Lucas wrote. “They do not care how Wisconsinites may suffer because of their lobbying efforts to pass favorable legislation or regulations…they don’t even live here.”
