The shovel-ready rate hike.

• Author: Gearino, G.D.
• Position: FINEPRINT

What's the functional difference between a tax-funded federal stimulus program and Duke Energy Corp.'s recent rate-hike request? Not much. Both would take money from our pockets and use it to finance big construction projects and thus create jobs--except that the Charlotte-based utility would actually give us something tangible in return, namely electricity. And that electricity is a valuable thing, because the progressive-minded souls among us need it to power their laptops so they can send expressions of outrage to government regulators about being forced to cough up more cash for Duke's job-creating construction projects. Anybody besides me see the irony here?

Let me say right up front that nothing that follows is an argument on behalf of Duke Energy. At the very least, the company has demonstrated an abysmal grasp of the fundamentals of public relations. As you might recall, it is seeking to acquire Raleigh-based Progress Energy Inc. and create the nation's largest power company. Its sales pitch to regulators and customers is based on the premise that the combined company will offer financial and operating efficiencies that can be passed along to bill payers. Did it not occur to any of the company's well-compensated executives that asking for a 15% rate hike right after making that pitch might be a tad awkward?

When that thought finally sank in, Duke reduced its request to 7.2%. It says it needs the money for construction projects and pollution-control efforts totaling $4.8 billion. The N.C. Utilities Commission already had approved those projects, and the commission's Public Staff--whose job it is to look after the interests of consumers--has given its OK to the 7.2% rate increase. But none of that mattered to the parade of objectors who appeared at various hearings to denounce, vigorously and sometimes profanely, the power company and its lying, thieving, greedy, pollution-spewing executives (my paraphrase, exaggerated only slightly).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I've already made my first point. Everyone generally agrees that the way to economic recovery is through those big "shovel-ready" projects that President Obama keeps saying we need, which will create jobs and upgrade the infrastructure. Improving Duke's power grid accomplishes both things. Does it really matter in a practical sense to whom, politicians or business executives, we give our money to bring a shovel-ready project into creation?

But there are two other, more elusive...