Service | Rates | Gas | Water | Home
3.12.05 Good bill, bad bill: LB 48 would strangle M.U.D.; LB 748 would enhance growth and help build a better utility. Omaha World-Herald editorial Two bills being considered by the Nebraska Legislature could have an impact -- one positive, one negative -- on the Metropolitan Utilities District and its customers/owners. M.U.D., which technically is a unit of local government, long has been a progressive and responsible utility for Omaha and environs. It has supplied the city with safe drinking water and natural gas, provided support for the community's growth and economic expansion and, by careful management and prudent decision-making, kept water and natural gas both plentiful and relatively inexpensive. Its natural-gas rates are among the lowest in the nation. Legislative Bills 48 and 748, both dealing with the district's natural-gas system, are awaiting debate. LB 48 would establish service areas for M.U.D. and other gas utilities, stunting the district's natural growth pattern and curtailing its ability to respond to changing urban dynamics. The bill would limit the district to "all territory within cities entirely served by M.U.D. and their extraterritorial zoning jurisdictions." That certainly would not include Bellevue, where M.U.D. serves 80 percent of residents and Aquila Inc., a private-sector company, serves 20 percent. And, M.U.D. officials suggested, it does not even seem to include Omaha, since Aquila provides natural gas to some areas within the city. That provision also appears to say that M.U.D.'s service boundaries would not automatically follow Omaha's zoning district outward. One compelling reason for businesses and industries to locate in the Omaha area is M.U.D.'s excellent service and its low rates. Passing LB 48 could hold back -- or at least slow -- economic development. LB 748, on the other hand, would strengthen M.U.D.'s stance as an independent, publicly owned utility. It would allow the agency the flexibility to stock up on natural gas in anticipation of need and at good prices, then wholesale the excess. The utility also could rationalize its service area by acquiring the facilities of other utilities within its boundaries. This newspaper previously has objected to interference by the Nebraska Public Service Commission in M.U.D.'s decision to lay a natural-gas pipeline from its Omaha service area to a transfer station near Springfield. M.U.D.'s publicly elected board, our editorial suggested, should be free of PSC interference as it guides and manages the utility. LB 748 would make that independence clearer. The measure is supported by the League of Nebraska Municipalities, in large part, M.U.D. officials said, because it simplifies the near-impossible procedures by which cities can condemn and buy natural-gas systems within their boundaries. A potentially troubling aspect of the proposal would allow M.U.D. to serve any community in Nebraska that requested service. Theoretically, M.U.D. could supply natural gas to North Platte or Chadron or McCook. Its board would have the final say; officials said they have no desire to expand its facilities outside the metropolitan area. Under LB 748, however, M.U.D. conceivably could provide wholesale natural gas to any community in the state that requested it. This would amount to a step toward unfair competition with the state's investor-owned natural-gas providers and should be one focus of legislative attention as the bill is debated. As to LB 48, it should be stopped in its tracks. M.U.D. needs the opportunity and flexibility to grow to meet future needs in the same way that Omaha must have the ability to annex new territory. Each would strangle, slowly, if landlocked. LB 748, however, would strengthen M.U.D. and contribute to its ability to carry out its legal responsibility in the Omaha metropolitan area. The measure might benefit from minor revisions, but its thrust is positive. |
||||