Progress Under Fire for Rate Hikes, Dirty Fuel Habit

The N.C. Waste Awareness & Reduction Network and Chatham Citizens for Alternative Power will protest Progress Energy's proposed rate hikes at the North Carolina Utilities Commission hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 2 at 10 a.m.

Represented by residential ratepayers, the groups will raise questions about the Raleigh-based utility's failure to generate more power from "free fuel" sources such as wind and solar radiation or to encourage greater energy conservation.

Progress wants to raise residential rates about 9 percent and industrial rates by about 15 percent, citing the rising cost of coal and natural gas. Fossil-fuel prices are cutting into company profits, with Progress last week reporting second-quarter earnings of $155 million, down $30 million since the same period last year.

"Obviously, milder weather has impacted our earnings this quarter," said chairman and CEO Bob McGehee, "but the third quarter is off to a good start temperature-wise."

Indeed, July's heat wave resulted in record-breaking energy usage for Progress. But while that may be good for company investors, one wonders how good it was for Rito Mesa Castillo, a 56-year-old farmworker who died of heat exposure while picking tobacco in Harnett County, or the three other area residents who also may have succumbed to the heat, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Increased power usage during heat waves also worsens the state's air pollution problem. Progress generates most of its energy - 46 percent - at coal-fired power plants. Those facilities are major contributors to North Carolina's air pollution problem, and to the Raleigh-Durham-Cary area's dubious distinction of being among the 25 most ozone-polluted metro regions in the country.

Fine particle pollution from coal-burning power plants causes over 27,400 asthma attacks, 1,600 non-fatal heart attacks and 1,100 premature deaths each year in North Carolina, according to a 2004 report from the N.C. Public Interest Research Group and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Coal-fired plants are also major emitters of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.

Tuesday's hearing will take place in Room 2115 of the Dobbs Building at 430 N. Salisbury St. in Raleigh and is open to the public.