PUD critic
Although our expectations of leadership are not always met, we have come to expect and have a right to demand every effort on their part to tell us the truth and be transparent in their reasoning process.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case with the Clallam County Public Utility District and its campaign against I-732, also known as the carbon tax proposal.
PUD commissioners were briefed by the Washington Public Utility Districts Association in Olympia, which analyzed the proposal and recommended against it, ignoring tax reductions required by I-732 that will offset the increase in electricity rates and provide relief to lower-income families.
You can’t see just a tree if you’re only looking at the forest.
“My focus is pretty narrow, and I’m looking at the impacts to our ratepayers,” says Will Purser [“Clallam Public Utility District Affirms Carbon Tax Opposition,” PDN, May 12].
That would be true if he told them what the actual rate increase would be, but their excuse is that they don’t know what it will be.
Why not tell that to the customer instead of portraying the effects of the carbon tax as near catastrophic by citing an expense as high as $1.8 million?
The operating budget was over $58 million, so the expense is just 3 percent.
Conservation efficiencies and buying renewable energy will lower that and address climate change impacts.
That is a fact and not speculation.
The PUD owes its ratepayers a balanced report, not a sensationalized and deceptive analysis.
The people can handle the truth.
Brian Grad,
Sequim
