Delmarva Finally Gets Pushback. Proposed Rate Increase Gets Trimmed:
After months of political pressure over rising electric bills, Delaware energy regulators rebuffed Delmarva Power by approving only part of the utility’s scaled-back rate increase request.
And Delmarva Power representatives say the decision was unlawful.
It was made last week within the confines of a gray government office where newly-appointed members of the state’s Public Service Commission discussed how they could ease the struggles residents face paying their rising power bills.
Just two months earlier Gov. Matt Meyer had appointed Richard and three others as new members to the Public Service Commission, which is in charge of considering rate-increase requests submitted by private utility companies.
Following the appointments, Meyer publicly pressured the commission to freeze electricity rates. Delaware lawmakers also passed a bill last month limiting the amount of infrastructure spending that Delmarva Power — the state’s largest utility company — could pass on to customers.
The politicians’ moves followed more than a year of growing antipathy among Delaware residents toward rising power bills. The mood was palpable to regulators and to Delmarva Power itself. Even before the governor began his pressure campaign, the utility company in early June cut its recent rate hike request in half.
But Public Service Commission members said the utility didn’t go far enough. During a July 1 meeting to discuss the rate increase, Richards noted that Delaware was about to enter “a huge heat wave.”
My favorite quote?:
“My suggestion is, if you don’t like it, appeal it,” said Commissioner Regina Iorii, also a new appointee, in response to those objections.
Matt Meyer has been without a doubt a mixed bag. But I like everything about this.
Yes, ICE Murdered An Innocent Man. Guilty of ‘Driving While Hispanic’:
Federal immigration agents who killed a man during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday had been searching for a different person, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman.
The targets of the ICE investigation were two people from Guatemala, one of whom the agents believed was in a white van being driven by the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who were not permitted to speak about the case.
But the Guatemalan immigrants were not in the van. Mr. Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States without authorization for 35 years, was on his way to work with three other men.
When agents tried to stop the vehicle, the encounter quickly escalated, and an agent shot Mr. Araujo in the abdomen. He died at a hospital hours later.
Homeland security officials said Mr. Araujo had tried to use his vehicle as a weapon, though no video or other evidence for that claim has emerged.
Federal agents had surveilled an address connected to one of the two Guatemalans weeks before and had seen two white vans at the property, the spokeswoman said in a statement. When they returned to the address on Tuesday, she said, “they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target,” and initiated the traffic stop.
‘A Latino in a white van’. Wow, how could it not have been Mr. Araujo? At least the agents were, oops, sorry, ‘not wearing body cameras, according to the spokeswoman.’ Merely an unfortunate oversight, I’m sure.
This is murder. Meanwhile the FBI is ‘focus(ing) its investigation into what the authorities have called an assault on a federal law enforcement officer’.
There is no justice.
The Base Of The Rethug Party Chooses Their Nominee For Governor In Colorado. Going out on a limb, if there are any close races there, the D’s will sweep all of them. Check this guy out:
Ministry leader Victor Marx has won the Republican primary for governor of Colorado, NBC News projects, setting up a general election matchup with state Attorney General Phil Weiser, the Democratic nominee.
Marx, a former Marine and the founder of an evangelical ministry, gained wider notice this year after a controversial interview.
Marx has long claimed that an abusive stepfather forced him to kill a man when he was only 7 years old.
The assertion resurfaced when Marx said in a May interview with NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver that he’d also possibly killed other people.
“I’ve been in other situations where, possibly, people or persons died as a result of me defending myself in other countries,” he said.
The reporter interviewing him asked: “Do you think that you’ve killed people as an adult?”
“Does it matter?” Marx responded. (He has a point there. But only if he was an ICE agent.)
It’s unclear whether Marx’s claims were referring to his time in the military.
Marx’s campaign website says he endured a troubled childhood — including being the victim of sexual abuse — before he turned his life around in the Marines.
He says his All Things Possible Ministries has rescued women and children held in captivity, including one particularly daring mission rescuing kidnapped girls from Islamic State territory.
Did I say, ‘The base’? I meant ‘debase’.
Yes, He’s Trying To Rig The Elections:
The White House on Thursday fired the leadership of the federal agency that provides funding and security guidance to election officials, according to sources familiar with the matter and an email reviewed by CNN — a move that’s already raising alarm bells among election officials about federal interference ahead of the midterms.
With the Trump administration having gutted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the EAC is one of the few remaining federal entities tasked with providing election security support to states. Created by Congress in 2002, the agency is meant to be bipartisan. It certifies voting equipment and has administered hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for elections.
The EAC has also been in the awkward position of trying not to draw the president’s ire while also standing up for election officials who have faced violent threats because of conspiracy theories pushed by the president. Some election officials feel the agency has fallen short on the latter.
A recent Supreme Court decision bolstering a president’s power to fire leaders of independent agencies had many in the election community fearing for the future of the EAC.
The commission was also a target of the first executive order Trump signed seeking to overhaul elections in 2025. It directed the EAC to add a proof of citizenship requirement to federal forms for voter registration, while ordering the commission to pressure states to adopt Election Day mail ballot deadlines.
Somewhere, Chris Coons shrugs his shoulders, and proceeds to his already-scheduled lunch with a friend from across the aisle.
Mamdani, NYC, Battle Junk Fees. Y’know, there’s no reason this can’t be replicated here:
New York City has adopted a new rule that bans companies from using deceptive subscriptions to trap customers into paying for gym memberships, streaming services and other recurring charges, the city’s consumer protection office said.
The new rule, which will start 1 October, promises hefty fines and aggressive enforcement for violators. Companies that do not provide a simple way to cancel could pay $525 per user subscription, back fees and additional fines.
The city is also targeting so-called “junk fees” that raise the final price of everything from apartments to sporting events, with a proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”, according to a release shared with the Guardian.
I know that the Arden Concert Gild uses a ticket sales company that provides the upfront price. Good policy.
The moves are part of an aggressive push by Zohran Mamdani and Levine, a former head of consumer protection in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to rein in what they see as predatory corporate malpractice nationwide.
“In the dawn of the [Ronald] Reagan era, the FTC and others in Washington said expressly that … markets could correct themselves, regulate themselves, they were going to stop writing rules,” and allow companies to police their own behavior, Levine said. “What it has gotten us is 40 years of deceptive pricing,” he said.
That right there is progressive policy-making.
What do you want to talk about?
