God I Hate Xcel — They Want Colorado Customers to Pay for Their Private Jets
March 13, 2012 at 2:37 PM Leave a comment
The balls:
A Bombardier Learjet 40 in 2002 (BOMBARDIER AEROSPACE | Business Wire file)
Xcel Energy’s private-jet fleet is drawing flak from Colorado utility regulators.
The Minneapolis-based utility is seeking a $142 million electricity-rate increase to cover costs that include pension and operations, as well as make up for the $52 million loss of a wholesale power contract — and $1.1 million for its two corporate jets.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission staff in its filings on the case says ratepayers shouldn’t pick up that tab.
The cost of operating one of the leased, eight-seat Bombardier Learjet 45 jets is $4,642 an hour, according to a filing by the commission staff.
The staff review also found two Xcel executives have been using the jets to commute weekly between their homes in the Denver area and their offices at Xcel headquarters in Minneapolis.
Again, the balls.
I know the alternative is to just build in the cost of the jets, which Xcel obviously already does, it’s just that now they’re ballsy enough to come out and put that expense into a rate increase request without any apparent sheepishness whatsoever. Along the lines of this outrageousness from January.
Entry filed under: Corporatocracy. Tags: colorado public utilities commission, electricity rate increase, xcel energy.
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