Saturday, April 19, 2008
 
A Ballot Initiative Robin Carnahan Will Approve
Compulsion for corporations? Sign her up!

    Missouri residents could get the chance to force some of the state's biggest utilities to sell more renewable energy.

    A group called Renew Missouri is trying to collect 150,000 signatures to get a November ballot initiative that would ask voters to decide whether the state should have a mandatory renewable energy standard.
Hey, we can force utilities to enact policies to make electricity more expensive! What's not to like?

Don't we have a legislature to handle these things?
    Since 2000, legislative attempts to establish mandatory renewable energy standards have faced utility opposition and failed.
That's a nice sentence, Brody. I notice you've stopped stuttering.

It would appear that reality diverges from this journalist's wildest yearnings:
    Last year, however, Gov. Matt Blunt signed into law the Green Power Initiative, which creates a goal of 4 percent renewable energy use in 2012 and 11 percent by 2020.

    Several utilities also offer their customers the chance to buy renewable energy. For example, AmerenUE sells renewable energy through its Pure Power program, which was rolled out last year.
But let's cut to the compulsion, shall we?
    But supporters of a ballot initiative say voluntary goals and programs are not enough.
It never is. Not until the ruled live in hovels and are no longer a threat to their betters, who are the animals who will be more equal (that is, not subject to rolling brownouts) than others.


 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."