AEP: "It's A Public Utility, So The Public Should Pay"

AEP, my favorite utility (to hate!), has filed a new request with the PUCO asking permission to charge all of us a $3 per month surcharge for the next 12 or 13 or 30 months, give or take.  Why?  Windstorms last June and July damaged some of AEP's lines, poles, etc.  The damage caused power outages for some nearby folks (e.g., Clintonville) which lasted longer than the outages from Hurricane Ike in 2009.

And just like back then, AEP would like us to pick up the tab for Mother Nature.  And Kaysuck's PUCO droogies are very likely to give them a rubber-stamp OK.

If you think about it, this is fairly outrageous.  At what point did I become personally responsible for natural disasters?  Why is AEP permitted to have no clue, no plan, no resources, no proactive idea of what to do about the fuckin' weather?  Weather happens!  AEP and other electric utilities persist in trying to maintain their antiquated overhead string-and-soup-cans delivery system, then every time the wind blows, they cry poor and demand that their customers pay to fix things.

The public is not the cause of the problem. Why must the public pay?  Suck it up, AEP.

It's like a couple of years ago after Hurricane Irene.  Rat-bastard Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) went on all the news shows and asserted, with a straight face, that not a single dollar in federal relief should be spent without equivalent cuts in social spending.  Really?  "Trade ya a new roof for the elimination of Social Security, OK?"  Never mind that one has nothing to do with the other.

Anyhoo, I'm not bitching about AEP's damn $3 -- I can swing it and so can you.  But we should not have to.  This is just a shake-down.  Again.