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Villagomez: Surcharge necessary
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Posted on Oct 23 2004
House Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications Committee chair Rep. Timothy Villagomez agrees with the imposition of a fuel surcharge fee but he said that it should not be used for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s operations.
Likewise, Villagomez, a former CUC executive director, said that the surcharge fee should not cover low-income families.
“I support it but it should not be used for operations. It should not be used to run the agency,” he said.
“You don’t want to impose that to low-income families. That’s what needs to be addressed by the committee,” he added.
The lawmaker met with CUC board chair Frank Guerrero and executive director Lorraine A. Babauta Friday morning to discuss the utility firm’s decision to impose a 3.5 cents surcharge fee per kilowatt-hour by December amid increases in fuel prices and a severe lack in CUC operational funds.
CUC said the surcharge would help solve its financial crisis as the electricity rate would increase to 14.5 cents per kwh for residential customers and 19.5 cents per kwh for commercial customers.
Villagomez said there should also be a fixed fuel rate to serve as gauge as to when to implement such increments. He said this price should be set before signing a contract with the fuel supplier.
“There should be a provision that parties would take a risk when prices go up or down. There should be a fixed rate,” he said.
He said his committee will no longer conduct its own hearing on the issue since CUC will do it next month.
“We’ll just wait for the result of the [CUC] hearings,” he said.
CUC said it would begin the campaign to inform and solicit comments from customers about the fuel surcharge in early November. CUC chair Guerrero said the fate of the proposal would depend on the public’s comments.
The current CUC leadership has been planning to impose a fuel surcharge since May, noting that the fee would permit CUC “to recover increases and pass on decreases in fuel costs.”
Such fee is a charge or credit that is applied to each kilowatt-hour of electricity sold, which is computed each month.
