Rep. Tom Perriello said Tuesday that state Sen. Robert Hurt, his Republican opponent in the 5th District race for Congress, voted for legislation in 2007 that allowed electricity rates to go up 60 percent in three years.
“Senator Hurt and the General Assembly approved a bill that tripled the opportunities for utilities to raise rates, and removed the power from” the State Corporation Commission to say no to rate-increase applications, said Perriello, a Democrat.
Hurt’s campaign replied that the legislation he supported three years ago, when he was in the House of Delegates, did not cause the multiple rate increases that Perriello was criticizing.
The rate increases occurred under laws that existed before 2007, said Amanda Henneberg, speaking for the Hurt campaign.
Henneberg then switched topics and talked about the Hurt campaign’s news release for Tuesday, which attacked Perriello’s 2009 vote in favor of cap-and-trade legislation that could have increased energy prices.
“Instead of disingenuously misleading voters on the campaign trail,” Henneberg said, “Congressman Perriello needs to be honest with the people of the 5th District and explain why he voted for a job-killing national energy tax that he fully admits would cause electricity rates to skyrocket.”
Several Republican congressional campaigns have been highlighting the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House of Representatives last year. The measure is being delayed in the U.S. Senate, where Democratic leaders have said it doesn’t have enough support to pass.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte told a Lynchburg crowd Monday night that he didn’t expect the cap-and-trade bill to go any further this year, not even during the “lame-duck” session of Congress that is scheduled after the November elections.
Perriello campaign spokeswoman Jessica Barba also said it was doubtful that the cap-and-trade bill would come up again this year.
Perriello, during a campaign event held in the Eastbrook section of Campbell County, leveled strong criticism at Hurt’s vote in Richmond in 2007 for Senate bill 1416. The measure restructured electricity rate-setting in Virginia.
Perriello said the legislation allowed power companies, including Appalachian Power, to apply for up to six rate increases per year in separate categories — for such things as base rates, fuel costs and environmental upgrades to plants.
Rate regulators in the SCC lost the ability to consider the utilities’ overall earnings picture, and were required to base their decisions on a narrow set of facts, Perriello said.
Phyllistine Moseley, in whose home Perriello was speaking to eight of his supporters, said her electricity bill this year hit $313 in February. The average bill in previous winters had been no more than $115, she said.
Reed is a staff writer for The News & Advance in Lynchburg.
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