TONY Baloney!

OK, so Tony wants your vote on Chugach Electric Association’s Board of Directors upcoming election, running as a challenger against the incumbents. Those up for re-election engage the mandate of the consumers. Basically, we want our money’s worth. Tony has aligned himself with some organization that advertises “Save the Coop”. I am still dazed and confused with that approach. So let us take a fantasy ride back in time to maybe shed some light about this guy that would like your vote to represent you with respect to electrifying matters. Tony was a transplant sent up to Alaska back in 99 when Seagull Energy sold out its interest in Enstar, Alaska’s very own natural gas transporter. Tony worked for SEMCO, Enstar’s new owner, a Michigan based natural gas supply company. Now Enstar was a time tested “good citizen” business that served the Anchorage community well over the years, since 1954. Things were a little different up here, so things were done a little differently, a carry-over form when this state was a territory. One of the things that the “old” Enstar regime insisted upon was not shutting off an individual’s natural gas supply in the cold of an Alaskan winter. No gas, no heat! See, many of the “seasonal” delinquent accounts came from the dwellers of the trailer courts. Many of those hard working Americans relied on seasonal work, so the wintertime was a sad time for their personal wealth. So come summer when the road and construction work picked up, Enstar would get paid. Late, but the payments were made. What’s a few thousand when we are talking millions in revenue? It was one of those “un-written” mutual agreed upon things that made Alaska what it was at one time, a great state missing political corruption. But that changed when SEMCO came along. See, SEMCO had a mischievous past and was under scrutiny by the Michigan Regulatory Commission, for ripping off the customers. So when Tony showed up, things were beginning to change at Enstar, all dictated from a Michigan like boardroom greed-be mentality. Notice how much your gas bill has gone up over the past 5-years? And this was all in efforts to make more money. Here is what happened. Many of the wells in Cook Inlet were drilled when subsidies were available, from both local and extended government handouts - in efforts to sustain an industry. As it meant jobs. Add to that, it meant low cost energy for Anchorage and the Kenai and the Matanuska Valley. There was plenty of low cost gas to go around for years. Then the producers went greedy. Most of the old wells out and around Cook Inlet are “grand fathered” in, so it means forever low cost gas. The producers weren’t happy with the fact that they were loosing money hand and foot as all new gas discoveries and deliveries are tied to a “hub”, so it brings in a windfall. Enstar leadership knew about this, but it was profit everybody was after. So the producers started capping off low-profit wells. This had a tendency to strangle-hold the system, until new wells could be tapped, ones that were tied to the “hub” and would no doubt bring in the windfall. And Enstar was all for this. They could have sanctioned the Alaska Regulatory Commission that this was not fair as they knew all to well the health of the gas reserves, from historical contracts. And through eminent domain taking effect, this state’s residents could still be paying a decent cost for gas to heat our homes. But greed begets greed. See, the more costly gas is, the more Enstar can charge the consumers for transporting that gas. It is based on value, so as gas value increases so does the transport cost, and that is how Enstar makes money. It’s like increasing your insurance coverage. Enstar doesn’t own any gas, this company only transports it to your door. It may sound odd, but that is what happened as everybody looks for a way to break over even. Anyway, things like this don’t just transpire unless an entity has people in high places. SEMCO was a little fish in a big ocean when it comes to the energy sector. But not to worry, as money buys friends and influence. Tony found Ben Stevens! That is why Ben Stevens was paid thousands of dollars to do nothing but be a member of the SEMCO board of directors, all this happening when Tony was at the helm. And Curtis Thayer, a long time friend of the Ted Stevens, Don Young and Frank Murkowski team, he became Enstar’s company spokesperson. If any singular business was infiltrated by the “Corrupt Bastards” affiliation, it was Enstar. And let us not forget these little tidbits. Enstar cooked the books for a wannabe amateur independent gas producer that was late on getting its own gas fields producing. Really, this outfit had contracts but no gas. The system of inputs and outputs was manipulated to represent that gas was flowing through wells still valved off, in reality there was nothing flowing – a big fat zero! Not a big problem? Think again when the weather went negatively cold one January. It was in the dead of a cold winter’s night wherein the pressure in Enstar’s pipeline went critically low. Why, because the wannabe had no gas! But it looked as though there was gas available, according to this wannabe’s customers’ demands, big commercial users like the Anchorage School District’s schools. The gas should have been shutoff and the schools shutdown. Why? Not enough gas! But not to worry as Tony knew what to do. It meant Enstar had to purchase gas from another provider, at a premium, for its own consumers, you and I. And in the end, this gas cost you and I an arm and almost a leg as “premium purchased” gas is very, very expensive. In commodities exchange, it is called “Backwardated”. And with so many cold spells each and every winter, it is probably more of the same. You and I pay for it. That is the unfortunate thing, as it is not our problem to begin with. But when a regulatory commission is aligned with political factions over the consumers’ benefit, we pay as they play. I am willing to bet that the screw-ups are confidently and confidentially added to the overall cost of gas, just like what Sears tried and was caught when it was loosing money due to bad credit and added a smidgeon of a percentage to each and every paying customer. One would never see it, as it was not a bothersome amount to gain attention upon, even though the fact that you were being robbed existed. And when Enstar was under Tony’s watch, the Office of Pipeline Safety under the U.S. Department of Transportation levied fines against Enstar, for falsifying reports. Several times this occurred, when its pipeline operating pressures were exceeded and not reported because the pipeline controllers on duty didn’t have the qualifications to even make Jello mold correctly. In fact, the DOT approved test to qualify operators to control a high-pressure pipeline - like in the Enstar case - the results were also falsified, as the test takers were given the answers before the test! This had never happened before in Enstar’s history. Why again? It was a local business with local bosses, true Alaskans, that were running the show instead of letting it be run for ruin by outsiders that had board rooms infiltrated by Alaska’s own crocks – for a handsome fee. Tony should have done his homework and realized that affiliating Enstar with Ben was bad business. So why anyone would vote to put a transplant with a past affiliated with Ben on a board is truly un-Alaskan. And with the anniversary of statehood so close, maybe it is time to look back upon our past and see where we went wrong, with the likes of Ben, and all the other political crooks that had infiltrated the system of righteousness and hurt us, and cost us. Vote the CEA board true Alaskans that know what it is like to be ethical and know to whom to stay away from. In my book, Tony’s bid to un-seat “Knights for the Consumer” is truly Tony Baloney!

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