Natural Resources Committee (NRC) Hearing
The NRC met in Kearney on 8 November 2006. There were three Legislative Resolutions under discussion. LR 365 and LR 372 saw some good discussion which primarily revolved around the need for biodiesel incentives and discussions on commercial wind and the eminent domain the utility holds over privately owned power generating facilities. Don't worry, though, an LES spokesman stated that won't exercise eminent domain as long as the can get the power from the facility cheaply.
LR 386 is an interim study to examine the economic impact of net metering on private renewable energy production. Although there were no figures presented to support the case of increased rates if net metering was instituted, the discussion was lively to say the least. Although NPPD leaders like Tim Texel and John McClure stressed that it is not an "us against them" environment and public power wants to partner in this development, it became clear as the afternoon wore on this was not the case. The room was clearly polarized into two camps: Citizens wanting to increase renewable energy production through net metering and the utilities who don't. This is a very unfortunate situation and it is our hope that the utilities and their citizen owners can work together to implement net-metering. 40 states have figure this out and the lack of a fair program in Nebraska has clearly held back development in this area.
Kristen Gottschalk, representing the Rural Electric Associations stated that renewable energy producers would be getting a "free ride" through net metering. This was startling since wind energy would benefit the rural areas the most. Although NEG&T representatives were present at the hearing and were expected to present the figures which were the core goal of the hearing, they opted not to testify.
NeREA hopes that these two camps can come together and get a program in place that will satisfy everyone. Senator Preister, a long time advocate for increased renewables in the state, was encouraged. After having been a 'lone wolf' on these issues for so long, he was glad to see that the proponents clearly outnumbered the opponents. The latest issue of the NeREA newsletter covers this event and the chairman assured us that letters may still be sent to the NRC to become part of the permanent record.