How do you spell relief?
Yesterday the Public Utility Commission released electric price estimates comparing current market prices to current capped rates and highlighting six strategies for mitigating the high cost of electricity.
In contrast, a recent campaign launched by PennFuture focuses on one strategy, conservation. Their new campaign, titled “HB2200 Spells Relief”, urges the mandatory installation of smart meters and sets future limits on energy consumption (a 2.5% reduction by 2013).
For starters who spells with numbers? Secondly, PPL and PECO have already installed similar meters, and government mandates are never a good idea. Mandates restrain business innovation and increase government oversight/cost.
How do you spell relief? f-r-e-e m-a-r-k-e-t-s
5 comments:
Government mandates are never a good idea? Why is that?
"Never" is too broad. I think Elizabeth should have said, "rarely". Yet she is absolutely correct when she states that "Mandates restrain business innovation and increase government oversight/cost."
As I recall, HB2200 which has passed the House, I thought, mandates reduction in energy production resulting in reduction in energy consumption. Is that correct? How will reducing energy production-consumption affect productivity and economic growth?
Good question Tim. Governments use mandates to implement unsustainable solutions. Examples include ethanol mandates which cause rising food prices, health insurance mandates which raise the cost of healthcare, education mandates, such as No Child Left Behind, which give schools an incentive to dumb down tests. If ethanol, universal healthcare, and national testing standards are viable solutions the government wouldn’t have to force the public compliance.
Mark Skousen explains, " Too often lawmakers resort to the force of law rather than the power of persuasion to solve a problem in society. They are too quick to pass another statute or regulation in an effort to suppress the effects of a deep rooted problem in society rather than seeking to recognize and deal with the real cause of the problem. . . "
Unfortunately, most governments are content to pass mandates in an effort to show that they are “doing something” when, in reality, they are diverting money from the solution (innovation in the private sector) to treat the symptoms. For more on mandates and government coercion read our commentary "The Nanny State Mentality" by Nathan Benefield.
That is correct, HB2200 forces a reduction in energy production leading to a decrease in total energy consumption. There is no guarantee that demand-response measures will allow generators to decrease energy production by 2.5% in 2013. If these new technologies fail, however, productivity will suffer as electricity companies are forced to produce less electricity, regardless of the demand, leading to higher prices for businesses. Striving to decrease energy consumption is admirable but forcing change by adding government regulation is not an effective policy. Instead of debating energy consumption we should be focusing on the real source of higher energy costs – the lack of a competitive electricity market.
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