New Mexico Rural Electric Cooperatives

sb83

Tell Legislators SB83 Will Hurt Rural Electric Member-Owned Cooperatives in
New Mexico!

Bill Hearing Date : 3-13-21

Start Time: 9:00 a.m.

Link to SB83:

https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?chamber=S&legType=B&legNo=83&year=21

Local Choice Energy providers would be unregulated and would establish their own rates to residential customers. Look at what happened in Texas 2 weeks ago when rates increased to astronomic levels. That increase was due in part to Community Choice Energy programs.

This legislation would automatically enroll every residential customer into this program unless you opt out. That decision should be yours as a member-owner not theirs.

Cooperatives would have to absorb all the administrative costs in implementing this program for Local Choice Energy Providers. This could result in increased rates to remaining cooperative ratepayers.

Reducing the size of the Co-ops customer base from which to recover the utility’s cost of providing service may increase the cost of electricity to remaining customers.

SB 83 could strand hundreds of millions of dollars of co-op investments and have a disproportional negative impact on cooperative members.

Tell Legislators SB83 Will Hurt Rural Electric Member-Owned Cooperatives in New Mexico!

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Message to Legislators

Oppose SB83-Local Choice Energy Act

Senate Bill 83 (SB-83), currently in the New Mexico Legislature, could have dramatic impacts on the costs and reliability of OUR rural electric service in our state. New Mexico Rural Electric Cooperatives have served our members across New Mexico for more than seven decades with reliable, affordable, and safe energy for their homes and businesses. SB-83 could strand millions and millions of dollars of consumer-owned infrastructure and investments.

The rural areas of our membership will not be sought after for aggregation. Co-ops serve less than 5 members per mile on average across all of our lines — will out of state private investors rush to take care of these members? This is an anti-rural bill. It would punish the rural poor people to the benefit of urban communities.

New Mexico Rural Electric Cooperatives stand together, unified, against SB-83 as history has proven time and time again in America that the Cooperative way of rural electrification is the best for those who produce our food, fiber, and energy in rural America - and New Mexico!

I urge you to oppose Senate Bill 83!