Temporarily at My Life as a Spam Blog
West Virginia could get American Electric Power’s first coal gasification plant, thanks to some Ohio groups that say the way the project is being funded violates the law.
AEP previously announced it wants to build the electricity generating plants in Meigs County, Ohio, and Mason County, W.Va. The Columbus-based company started filing applications for the necessary approval from Ohio regulators before it did in West Virginia and figured the Ohio plant would be running first.
But the approval process could go faster in West Virginia than Ohio.
In March, two AEP subsidiaries asked the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to let it increase its customers’ rates to pay for the plant’s $23.7 million pre-construction costs. The commission OK’d the companies’ requests, but five groups filed petitions claiming the order violates Ohio law.
Ohio’s electricity generation utilities are deregulated, which means companies have to pay to build plants by selling energy into the market. West Virginia’s utilities are regulated, which means companies can pass on the cost of building a new plant to its customers, explained AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry.
tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10866766.post-114882949290718757
What the San Antonio Express-News had to say
Veterans say care is slipping away
Scott Huddleston
Express-News Staff Writer
KERRVILLE — Vowing to fight as hard for fairness as they did for their nation, South Texas veterans are sounding a call for health care services in areas they say are underserved.
Amid budget cuts and revamping of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, the Kerrville Veterans Hospital, a full-service hospital in the 1990s, has been stripped of such specialties as cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics and dermatology.
A contract for the urologist there will expire next month, forcing veterans in a 14-county area to go to San Antonio for treatment, Alan Hill, president of the Hill Country chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, said at a rally Saturday.
Though routine procedures such as oral surgery, colonoscopies, podiatry care and X-rays are still done in Kerrville, Hill said the hospital will close by the end of the year, "if we don't put a stop to it."
"A nursing home with a clinic is all it'll be," he told about 120 supporters outside the hospital.
Local officials of the Veterans Affairs Department say there are no plans to close the Kerrville hospital.
Hill said veterans, one of the largest voting blocs in the nation, should take nothing for granted and be ready to vote against leaders who don't support veterans.
"They're lying to us. We've got to let them know we're tired of it," he said. "Vote someone else in who'll be pro-veteran."
[The campaign for estate tax repeal has largely been financed by just 18 powerful business dynasties, including the family that owns Wal-Mart.
You may have heard tales of family farms and small businesses broken up to pay taxes, but those stories are pure propaganda without any basis in fact. In particular, advocates of estate tax repeal have never been able to provide a single real example of a family farm sold to pay estate taxes.]
