A powerful shadow government commission won’t save KY coal but will raise energy prices | Opinion

When asked by people how Frankfort works, one thing I share is that what’s debated in public is a lot like storytelling.

Legislative narratives are based on selective facts. If contradictory evidence can’t be refuted, then it’s ignored. Hiding the ball is essential to the craft.

Energy legislation (SB 349) that’s been promised from Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, arrived last week on the last day for bills to be filed. The story that will now be told is that Frankfort needs a new commission to examine the challenges to Kentucky’s low-cost energy future.

Presenting the bill in committee, Stivers emphasized the legislation’s commitment to an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. It’s a talking point many might buy – unless they read past the bill’s first page.

The Energy Planning and Inventory Commission, or EPIC, would be an 18-member group drawn from Kentucky’s business and energy sectors. There would also be an executive committee, which would wield the commission’s real authority. And, the authority granted to this new bureaucracy is unprecedented.

For example, if an electric utility plans to retire a power plant that has reached the end of its useful life, the utility is required to provide a one-year notice to EPIC’s executive committee before initiating the regulatory process already required through Kentucky’s Public Service Commission (PSC).

That notice will trigger an expensive, taxpayer-funded report to examine a set of issues that have little to do with the provision of reliable and affordable power and, heretofore, haven’t been necessary for the PSC to do its job. According to the bill, the report “approved by a majority of the members of the executive committee shall be designated as findings of the (whole) commission.”

The five members of the executive committee include the head of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research and two members selected by the other commission members. A utility executive has a spot on the executive committee.

Finally, the fifth member must have the “professional experience…required to serve as chief executive officer or board member” of a coal producer.

This is where the bill’s supporters start hiding the ball to sustain their narrative.

If this commission was truly interested in an all-of-the-above approach to electric generation, why not designate a position on the executive committee from the natural gas industry? Someone with expertise in large scale solar installations? Maybe even the nuclear sector?

Kentuckians are being told EPIC is needed to focus on reliable and affordable power. But the legislation doesn’t mandate an executive committee member that speaks for consumers or someone who understands the complexities of regional grid transmission.

Truth is, this commission is designed to serve the coal industry.

Frankfort has always been protective of coal. For decades, that aligned with providing the lowest cost energy option for Kentuckians. But that has changed.

Federal regulations have made, and will continue to make, coal-fired generation more expensive than natural gas.

A new state bureaucracy isn’t the answer to the attack on coal from Washington D.C. Kentucky’s attention should be focused on winning that battle in the courts. SB 349 does nothing to support that fight.

As much as I’d like to see coal prevail in the ideological war that’s been waged against it, moving forward with an orderly transition to natural gas for baseload power is in Kentucky’s best interest.

Instead, EPIC would erect unnecessary barriers to that transition and require ratepayers to shoulder the costs for financial benefits that will accrue to a small number of coal companies, several of which operate outside of Kentucky.

The legislation is on the fast track out of the Senate. Taxpayers still have an opportunity to tell their own story to their House member.

Here’s how to start that conversation: “Kentuckians want our coal industry to succeed. We shouldn’t, however, be asked to pay excessive energy prices to prop it up.”

Andrew McNeill is the President of the Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics & Education, a non-profit policy think tank. His email address is amcneill@kyfree.org.