Veto Session to Convene in Jefferson City

The Missouri General Assembly will meet at the Capitol in Jefferson City beginning Wednesday, September 10, 2014, for the annual Veto Session.  Legislators will have the opportunity to vote on overriding any of the 30 bills vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon after the regular legislative session ended in May.

Consumers Council of Missouri is working to ensure that the veto of Senate Bill 694 be sustained should a motion be made to override it.

To read why Governor Nixon vetoed SB 694, click here.

To find out more about the bill and why the veto should be sustained, click here.

Help CCM by contacting your state legislators to uphold the veto: Click here.

Editorial Praises Veto; News Reports Detail Bill’s Many Defects

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 14, 2014

St. Louis Public Radio/The Beacon, July 11, 2014

Springfield News-Leader

Consumers Council Lauds Governor’s Veto of Bogus Payday Loan Reform Bill

ST. LOUIS, Mo., (July 10, 2014) — Governor Jay Nixon’s veto today of legislation purporting to reform the payday loan business is receiving approval from the statewide organization that represents interests of individual consumers.

“Governor Nixon has acted on behalf of the legions of people who have gotten snared by the debt trap set by the payday lending industry,” said Joan Bray, executive director of Consumers Council of Missouri.  “Proponents of the bill, Senate Bill 694, touted it as improving the current law in favor of consumers.

“But this bill was only window dressing.  If it became law it would postpone significant reform by enabling the industry to say it had made enough changes,” Bray added.  Nothing in the bill precluded a payday lender from entangling a consumer in long-term debt, she said.

She noted that Missouri is one of the last frontiers for predatory lending, with interests on some short-term loans approaching 2,000 percent and the average being 454 percent.

Bray said one significant deception in the bill appeared to curtail bullying and abusive behavior by bill collectors by referring to federal law.  But the federal law cited does not cover bill collectors, thereby making the provision worthless.

“That ruse was one of the major reasons we urged the governor to veto the bill.  He listened to everyone opposing this bill on behalf of consumers,” she said.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 4, 2014

Ameren Missouri filed a request Thursday to raise electric rates by nearly 10 percent, the sixth time since 2006 the state’s largest utility has sought a general rate increase.
The St. Louis-based utility is seeking permission from its regulator, the Missouri Public Service Commission, to increase rates by $264 million.

If the PSC grants Ameren the full request, the typical household would pay about $10 more a month in utility bills. The rate case process takes almost a year as the commission undertakes a complete audit of Ameren’s cost of service, and consumer and opposing groups get involved. Ameren expects a decision by May of next year and rates to become effective by June 2015.

Rate increases over the last several years have increased the utility’s overall rates by about 42 percent, not including the smaller changes that adjust rates based on fluctuating fuel costs. Since 2006, Ameren Missouri’s base operating revenue from rates has risen from just more than $2 billion to more than $3 billion, according to the utility’s filings with the PSC.

Rates will have risen more than 50 percent since 2006 if the PSC grants the latest request in full. In recent years, the regulator has approved Ameren’s rate increase requests, but a lower amount than originally proposed by the utility.

About half of Ameren’s request is to recover higher net fuel costs, which the utility says are mostly driven by lower prices for the wholesale electricity it sells to other utilities. The utility uses these sales to partly offset costs to its Missouri customers.

Ameren also cited the money it has put into Missouri’s renewable energy mandate and the cost of complying with stricter Environmental Protection Agency rules on coal-fired power plant pollution. It says it also has to invest millions into replacing aging infrastructure such as substations and power lines.

“Those three primary drivers continue to drive up the cost of service,” said Warren Wood, Ameren’s vice president of external affairs and communications.

In addition, the utility listed increased costs from taxes and costs it expects to incur when it shuts down its Meramec coal plant in south St. Louis County by 2022.

In addition, it is requesting a higher percentage return than what is currently allowed by the commission. Right now, Ameren is allowed a 9.8 percent return on equity; it’s seeking 10.4 percent.

Wood said the request was based on the average return among investor-owned utilities throughout the country. “We have to be able to attract investment, obviously, to be able to invest in more clean renewable energy,” he said.

Ameren’s rate increase was expected, with Ameren alluding to it for months. Customer groups criticized the request.

“I think like all other ratepayers for Ameren, I look at the request from a place of pretty profound skepticism,” said Acting Public Counsel Dustin Allison, whose office advocates on behalf of ratepayers in front of the commission.

The Fair Energy Rate Action Fund, or FERAF, which counts consumer groups as well as large industrial power users among its members, accused Ameren of purposely filing the request just before the holiday weekend, when it “expected fewer Missourians to be paying attention.”

“Missourians simply can’t afford to pay 50 percent more for electricity than they did seven years ago,” FERAF executive director Chris Roepe said in a statement. “We look forward to aggressively opposing this unwarranted rate hike because of the damage it would do to Missouri’s families and economy.”

The increase is almost the same for all of the utility’s customers, which are charged different rates based on how much electricity they use. Industrial and larger commercial customers would see about the same 9.7 percent increase as households. General rates last increased in January 2013, when Ameren won a 10 percent, $259.6 million increase from its regulator.

What’s different this time, however, is Ameren’s rate increase is being filed at the same time it is defending against an overearnings complaint filed by its largest customer, Noranda Aluminum.

That case, filed at the beginning of the year, seeks a reduction in rates and accuses the utility of earning $67 million more than it should have during late 2012 through September 2013.

Noranda has filed a separate request ask for a lower individual rate. Noranda consumes about 10 percent of Ameren Missouri’s power, and it has its own electric rate as a result.

PSC Chairman Robert Kenney said there was little to no precedent for a rate increase and overearnings case occurring simultaneously, but he expected the two to have little influence on each other. Hearings begin on the overearning case at the end of this month and a decision is expected in September.

“To a certain degree there shouldn’t be too much overlap, and I would imagine the decision in the (overearnings) case would come in before the rate request case,” he said. “I think that what we will have to do is weigh the evidence in each case on their own merits.”

Joan Bray, who heads the Consumers Council of Missouri, said she thought the timing of Ameren Missouri’s rate filing was influenced by Noranda’s overearnings complaint as well as its request for a lower individual rate.

“I would think it certainly might be considered a defensive tactic,” she said.

There’s good evidence that the utility is earning more than the rate set by the PSC, she said, and it is “interesting” Ameren would say it needs more money. “There’s a case going on right now, and it should be allowed to play out.”

Zacks Upgrade Ameren to ‘Strong Buy’

Before It’s News – Analyst Blog, July 10, 2014

On July 10, Zacks Investment Research upgraded Ameren Corporation (AEE) to a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Why the Upgrade?

Ameren Corporation has been witnessing rising earnings estimates on the back of strong earnings performance. The supplier of electricity and natural gas to over 3.3 million customers delivered positive earnings surprises in 3 of the last 4 quarters with an average beat of 18.69%. The long-term expected earnings growth rate for this stock is 7.5%

To maintain its performance over the long run, Ameren Corporation has long-term investment plans aimed at strengthening its operations. The company intends to invest a total of $8.3 billion on regulated infrastructure between 2014 and 2018, with roughly $1.83 billion allocated for 2014. Ameren’s 2014 spending projection reflects a 32.6% year-over-year jump.

Ameren Corporation is progressing well on its Illinois Rivers Transmission Project and plans to invest $1.4 billion in its Ameren Illinois & Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois (ATXI) ventures. The scheduled completion of these projects will enable Ameren to provide uninterrupted services to its customers.

Ameren’s focus on rate regulated operations is expected to provide stability to its revenue stream. Moreover, the company disburses regular dividends with a long-term plan to increase the payout ratio to a band of 55% and 70%. This will keep the investors interested.

Based on strong fundamentals, the company raised its earnings per share projection for 2014 to a range of $2.30–$2.50 from $2.25–$2.45. The company expects earnings per share to increase at a 7% to 10% compound annual growth rate from 2013 through 2018.

Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2014 increased 12.7% to $2.37 per share as two estimates were revised higher while, for 2015, one positive estimate revision lifted the consensus by 7.8% to $2.55 per share.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 22, 2014

Ameren Missouri customers will be paying a little more for electricity starting later this month.

The Missouri Public Service Commission has approved an increase in the surcharge customers pay to account for Ameren’s fuel and power purchases.

The fuel adjustment clause will rise by 66 cents a month to a total of $3.63 for a residential customer using 1,100 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month. The change will take effect May 27.

The Post-Dispatch reported Ameren’s request when it was filed in late March. Ameren said it expected to raise about $57 million from the charge, which it attributed to a cold winter that kept electricity demand higher than usual.

A 2005 law allows utilities to bill customers for changes in fuel costs without waiting for their next general rate case. Ameren typically asks for adjustments three times a year, and sometimes bills decrease if the utility pays less for fuel.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 14, 2014

As a rebate that subsidized rooftop solar panels nears its end, two Ameren Missouri customers have filed a formal complaint with the state’s utility regulator in an attempt to keep the money flowing.

The complaint, submitted Wednesday to the Missouri Public Service Commission, accuses Ameren Missouri of violating the state’s renewable energy law when it denied their rebate applications. State law keeps utilities’ renewable energy efforts from increasing electric rates beyond 1 percent, but the PSC never determined the program would do that, the complaint alleges.

The complaint comes just weeks before the expected end of a $2-per-watt rebate that Ameren Missouri and other investor-owned utilities in the state have to pay to customers who install rooftop solar panels. In Ameren’s case, the $91.9 million it allocated for solar rebates was spoken for at the end of last year, and installers need to wrap up projects before the end of June to claim the payments.

The rebate program was established as part of the 2008 voter-approved Renewable Energy Standard, which required investor-owned utilities to use renewables for a portion of their electricity. To help get the state’s solar industry off the ground, the law also set up the rebate.

It has proved popular across the state, but the utilities cited the 1 percent rate cap when they filed to suspend rebate payments last year.

Solar industry and other renewable advocates eventually reached deals with the utilities to avoid a sudden halt to the solar rebates. In Ameren’s territory, the utility capped their value at $91.9 million, but the solar industry has always maintained that Ameren never revealed how it arrived at that cap.

“It’s never been calculated to the satisfaction of the industry, for sure,” said Heidi Schoen, executive director of the Missouri Solar Energy Industries Association. The $91.9 million cap agreed to last year, and others covering other utilities’ territory, are “completely arbitrary,” she said.

Ameren, in a statement, said the $91.9 million was “the maximum that state law allows without adding more than 1 (percent) to our rates” and was agreed to by the solar industry, consumer advocates, industrial consumers and others.

But Deane Todd and Patricia Schuba, the two customers who filed the complaint, say state law expressly requires the PSC to calculate whether the 1 percent cap has been reached. Until then, it can’t allow utilities to stop paying the rebate. Schuba also is one of the organizers fighting Ameren over its proposed coal ash landfill in Franklin County.

Matt Ghio, the St. Louis attorney representing the complainants, said his clients weren’t bound by the agreement reached with Ameren last year setting the $91.9 million cap. He is representing other customers in a similar case filed Wednesday against Kansas City Power & Light Greater Missouri Operations, and he said he hoped to add more customers to the complaint cases in the coming weeks.

“The commission is required by law to make those determinations before they can authorize utilities to suspend payments of the rebates,” Ghio said.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2, 2014

Opinion

By Tishaura O. Jones, Treasurer of the City of St. Louis

One of my goals as treasurer is to create programs that will help improve the quality of life for St. Louis residents. That is why I’ve made financial literacy and empowerment my mission.

Simply put, financial literacy is the ability to understand how money works. But financial literacy isn’t just about balancing your checkbook or knowing how much money you have in the bank. When you are financially empowered, you can avoid predatory lending practices like payday loans. A financially empowered person knows that legislation like Missouri Senate Bill 694 is a bad idea.

SB 694 is like putting lipstick on a pig in that it doesn’t really reform the payday loan industry. SB 694 allows lenders to increase their collection fees by adding the cost of returned checks. Even though it prohibits rolling over a loan several times, it does not prevent the lender from cancelling out or closing one loan and opening a new one.

The sponsors and supporters of the bill will tout that consumers will have a new option of paying off the loan through an extended payment plan. However, the lender doesn’t have to offer it to customers. Lenders can just post a couple of conspicuous signs and print a few flyers.

There is more. One of the most egregious additions to the law is it allows payday lenders who are licensed out of state but advertise on the Internet to obtain a license in Missouri to do business. This opens Pandora’s Box and allows consumers to take out multiple payday loans from different sources.

Real reform would be getting rid of the payday loan industry altogether, but since that is unlikely to happen, the next best solution would be to cap the loan interest rates at 36 percent, which is still incredibly high. There should also be a statewide database, a limit to the number of payday loans a borrower can take out, and if a borrower cannot repay the loan, then they would have to undergo credit counseling. Payday loan fees should be limited to 10 percent of the loan amount. The payday lender should be limited in what they can do to obtain past due payments from clients.

However, I don’t see any of this happening, as our weak ethics laws allow special interest groups to make unlimited campaign contributions. Previous attempts to legislate this issue have been derailed.

As treasurer, I am committed to helping St. Louis residents become financially literate and learn how to confidently manage money so they can avoid using payday loans. Long-term planning of our financial futures will in turn leave a legacy to our children so they will be protected for years to come.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 24, 2014

Ameren shareholders Thursday voted down two proposals offered by activist shareholders, but the measures still drew significant support from investors at the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
The board of directors at the St. Louis-based power company had recommended that the two proposals be rejected.

The first proposal, which would have required Ameren’s chairman be an independent member of the board of directors, was backed by 26 percent of the vote cast by investors. Seventy-three percent of voted against the proposal, while 1 percent abstained.

The current board chairman is Thomas Voss, who stepped down as Ameren’s chief executive Thursday. Warner Baxter, who took over as CEO, is expected to also take the board chairmanship when Voss retires on July 1.

The second — a proposal that would require Ameren to disclose its lobbying efforts and any money given to nonprofit groups that write and endorse model legislation — was supported by 30 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, 51.5 percent voted against it, while 18.5 percent abstained.

Part of the second proposal was aimed at Ameren’s past support of American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed nonprofit group. ALEC has drawn fire from many Democrats for its role in developing and pushing model legislative bills that back conservative or pro-business causes.

As recently as August, the utility was a sponsor for ALEC’s annual meeting, according to the liberal advocacy group Center for Media and Democracy.

Ameren says that it is not a member of ALEC and that it would disclose any political contributions to that group.

“Ameren is committed to transparency, and our political contributions policy is available” on the company’s website, Ameren’s General Counsel Greg Nelson said in a written statement.

A spokesman couldn’t be reached for a comment on whether the Ameren provides any money, not just political contributions, to the organization.

Overall, the proposal votes seem to reflect investor interest in the particular subjects rather than dissatisfaction with the company’s management. On Thursday’s vote to approve compensation for top executives, only 4 percent of those votes cast disapproved the resolution versus 94 percent approving and 2 percent abstaining.

A third proposal, which would have required a detailed report on greenhouse gas emissions, had been withdrawn by the sponsor — New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, acting on behalf of the N.Y. State Common Retirement Fund — after Ameren improved its social responsibility report.

Office of Sen. Barbara Boxer, April 8, 2014

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sent a letter Tuesday (April 8) urging General Motors CEO Mary Barra to support the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, bipartisan legislation that would help protect consumers by keeping unsafe, recalled rental cars off the road.

Last week, at a Senate Commerce Subcommittee hearing on GM’s recall of 2.6 million vehicles, Senator Boxer questioned Barra about GM’s troubling opposition to the legislation – through the industry trade group, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers – in light of the company’s promise to cover the cost of interim rental vehicles while customers wait for their vehicles to be repaired. Barra agreed at the hearing to take a closer look at the legislation.

Senator Boxer wrote, “Your support for this bill is critical because right now there is no guarantee that your customers are renting safe cars while they wait for their recalled vehicles to be repaired.”

Senator Boxer introduced the legislation with Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) after two of Boxer’s constituents – Raechel and Jacqueline Houck, two sisters from Santa Cruz – were killed in a tragic accident in 2004 while driving a rented Chrysler PT Cruiser that had been recalled for a power steering hose defect but had not been repaired. The car caught fire because of the defect while traveling on Highway 101 in Monterey County, causing a loss of steering and a head-on collision with a semi-trailer truck.

In September 2012, Senators Boxer, Schumer and McCaskill announced that all major car rental companies – Hertz, Enterprise, Avis Budget, Dollar Thrifty, and National – agreed to voluntarily stop the renting or selling of vehicles that have been recalled by their manufacturer and endorsed the legislation.

Although the bipartisan bill has the support of the major rental car companies and consumer advocates, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers – which includes GM – has opposed the bill and is working to prevent it from moving forward in the Senate. The National Automobile Dealers Association, which includes many GM franchise dealerships, is also opposed to the legislation.

“You testified that ‘When there’s a safety issue, there should never be a business consideration that goes against it’,” Senator Boxer continued. “I hope you will take this to heart as you review this legislation.”

The legislation is also endorsed by American Car Rental Association, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, AAA, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Consumers Union, and State Farm Insurance. The bill also has the support of Cally Houck, the mother of Raechel and Jacqueline Houck.

The full text of the letter follows:

April 8, 2014

Mary T. Barra, Chief Executive Officer
General Motors Company
P.O. Box 33170
Detroit, MI 48232-5170

Dear Ms. Barra:

During your testimony before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, you stated that you had not read S. 921, the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, which is named after two sisters from Santa Cruz who were killed when a recalled car they had rented caught fire and crashed into a truck.

This legislation, which was first introduced in 2012, would:

·       Prohibit the rental or sale of rental vehicles subject to a federal safety recall, consistent with existing law for new car dealers, who are prohibited from selling or leasing recalled vehicles.

·       Require rental companies to ground vehicles within 24 hours of receiving a safety recall notice from the manufacturer.  Companies with fleets over 5,000 vehicles would have up to 48 hours.

·       Permit rental companies to implement temporary measures to eliminate the safety risk until parts are available.

·       Allow manufacturers to continue to issue technical service bulletins or customer satisfaction service campaigns for problems that do not rise to the level of a federal safety recall.

Your support for this bill is critical because right now there is no guarantee that your customers are renting safe cars while they wait for their recalled vehicles to be repaired.

You testified that “When there’s a safety issue, there should never be a business consideration that goes against it.”  I hope you will take this to heart as you review this legislation.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

St. Lous Post-Dispatch, April 2, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not too late to get covered. A few routes remain open for those who missed the health care law’s big enrollment deadline.

Millions may be eligible for a second chance to sign up for subsidized insurance this year. And people who get coverage after the deadline can still avoid, or at least reduce, the fine for going uninsured.

Here are five options for those still without insurance:

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1. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE GRACE PERIOD

This special break was created for anyone who began enrolling in an insurance marketplace by Monday’s deadline but didn’t finish. That includes people stymied by website outages or overwhelmed phone lines, missing information on applications, and other problems or confusion.

Those who started an application on HealthCare.gov by March 31 should log on and finish it as soon as possible. Federal officials say they will take what time is necessary to work through cases pending.

People applying online will have until April 15 to finish, administration spokesman Aaron Albright said Tuesday. Paper applications will be accepted until April 7.

Consumers will have to attest that they had tried to enroll by March 31.

Rules vary in the 14 states running their own insurance marketplaces.

For most people, going through a marketplace opens the door to lower costs. Those who use the grace period will get coverage starting May 1 and won’t owe a fine.

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2. USE A SPECIAL ENROLLMENT PERIOD

The government also is offering special extensions for a host of problems that might have prevented people from signing up through a marketplace: Natural disasters. Domestic abuse. A serious illness. Mistakes by application counselors. Errors by insurance companies.

To seek a “special enrollment period,” contact the federal call center, at 1-800-318-2596, or your state marketplace and explain what went wrong. It’s on the honor system. If the extension is approved, that brings another 60 days to enroll.

Also, at any time during the year, certain life events — such as changing jobs, getting married or divorced, or becoming a parent — open a 60-day window to sign up for marketplace coverage.

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3. SIGN UP FOR MEDICAID

Those who qualify can still enroll in Medicaid — there’s no deadline. Eligibility is based on income and varies from state to state. About half the states expanded their Medicaid programs. The main beneficiaries of the change are adults earning up to about $16,100 per year, with no children living at home. Previously, Medicaid was limited mostly to poor children and their parents and people with disabilities.

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4. BUY INSURANCE OUTSIDE THE MARKETPLACES

Buyers can always go directly to an insurance company, but it may be expensive. Plans bought outside the marketplaces don’t come with government subsidies that hold down the cost for people with low or mid-level incomes. But they do include the law’s consumer protections. For example, insurers can’t turn down customers because of pre-existing medical conditions.

Even after the deadline, buying a plan that meets the law’s essential coverage standard reduces the penalty owed, which is based on the number of months without coverage.

The fine for going uninsured all year is the greater of two formulas: about 1 percent of household income above the tax-filing threshold of $10,150 or $95 per adult and $47.50 per child under 18, up to $285 per family. It’s due to the IRS in April 2015.

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5. GET READY FOR NEXT TIME

Open enrollment for 2015 is coming later this year. It’s scheduled to begin Nov. 15 and run just three months. That’s another chance to get covered or switch into a plan with subsidies.

Supporters of the law are calling on President Barack Obama to make things easier next time around.

The advocacy group Families USA suggested a bunch of improvements Tuesday, including more face-to-face sign-ups, coordinating enrollment with tax-filing season so people better understand the fines, and improving coordination with Medicaid programs.

Something to think about: The uninsured penalty next year rises to 2 percent of income or $325 per adult and $162.50 per child.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 31, 2014

A dispute between a major employer in the Missouri Bootheel region and St. Louis-based Ameren Corp. is commanding attention from consumer groups, cities and even the world’s largest retailer, creating unusual alliances in the process.
Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp., which operates a smelter in New Madrid that employs 888 people, is seeking sharply lower electric rates, something it says it needs to preserve jobs in an economically depressed corner of the state.

If granted, the rate cut to this one business — from 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour to 3 cents — would raise the cost of electricity by at least 1.8 percent for Ameren’s other customers in Missouri, according to a regulatory filing. The average residential customer pays 10.3 cents a kilowatt hour.

Despite that, some high-profile Missouri consumer advocates are on Noranda’s side.

The reason: Noranda, in a separate complaint with the Missouri Public Service Commission, is accusing Ameren of earning millions of dollars more than the 9.8 percent return on equity allowed by the PSC. The company wants state regulators to order Ameren to reduce rates for all customers.

In the 12 months ended Sept. 30, the amount the utility overearned was at least $29.2 million, according to Ameren’s own reports. Noranda’s consultants assert the amount was even higher, $67.1 million.

Ameren has argued the reports detailing its return on equity are not a complete picture of its earnings, and that Noranda already pays less for electricity than its other customers.

The allegation of overearning surfaced last year. In March 2013, the utility released part of a report that showed its return on equity, a key measure of profitability, was 11.66 percent in 2012 — far above the 10.2 percent it was authorized by the PSC to earn at the time. The difference equaled about $80 million.

Ameren attributed higher earnings in 2012 to some unusual circumstances, including the hottest summer on record.

Consumer groups could have filed a complaint and asked for a rate reduction when the excess earnings were first identified, but they didn’t.

“That takes quite a bit of money to do,” said John Coffman, an attorney for the Consumers Council of Missouri. “No one had the resources to put that together.”

Instead, the consumer groups turned to Noranda, a Franklin, Tenn.-based company controlled by Apollo Global Management, one of the nation’s biggest private equity firms.

Unlike the PSC’s Office of Public Counsel, which advocates for ratepayers, or grass-roots consumer groups, Noranda has the resources to press an overearnings case before the PSC.

Its complaint, filed last month, set off a flurry of activity from lawyers, lobbyists, publicists, advocacy groups, municipalities. Even Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has asked to intervene, although it has not taken a public position on the cases.

The group advocating on behalf of Noranda and consumers is the Fair Energy Rate Action Fund. Charles Skoda, Noranda’s senior vice president of strategic operations sits on the board. So does Joan Bray, a former state legislator who heads the Consumers Council. Jeanette Mott-Oxford, a former state representative from St. Louis who is currently director of the Missouri Association of Social Welfare is a board member, as is the Missouri state director of AARP.

Even though it would mean higher rates for other Ameren customers, the consumer groups have not opposed Noranda’s request for a rate cut. In fact, they have even filed a motion asking the PSC to expedite its review of Noranda’s request to lower only its rates, suggesting a plant closure could hurt other customers more.

The smelter buys roughly 10 percent of Ameren Missouri’s power. If the plant were to close, the drop in demand would have to be made up somewhere, they argue.

“That closure … would cause rates to increase for all Ameren Missouri customers by an amount greater than if complainants obtain their requested relief,” the consumer groups wrote in a filing asking for expedited review of Noranda’s rate reduction request.

A sluggish global economy and rising Chinese production have hurt aluminum prices and spurred producers to trim capacity. On Friday, Alcoa announced it would temporarily shutter a smelter and reduce production at another smelter because of the Brazilian facilities’ operating costs.

Public Counsel Lewis Mills, whose office represents consumers in regulatory matters and was a party in that filing, said there’s a difference between asking for faster review and “being on board” with Noranda’s request for lower rates.

The PSC should review the case quickly, Mills said, because Noranda has threatened to shut down. If that’s true, it could harm ratepayers.

“If the commission does not act expeditiously, it will be the same as not acting at all,” Mills said.

Mills, though, said there’s a chance Noranda’s overearnings complaint could help consumers more than the company’s rate reduction request would hurt them. Still, his office hasn’t staked out a position on the smelter’s rate filing yet.

Chris Roepe, executive director of the Fair Energy Rate Action Fund, said there is no conflict between Noranda and the more consumer-oriented members of the group.

“The fact is all consumers’ rates are going to go up higher if Noranda has to buy energy on the open market or they have to close their doors,” Roepe said. “That would be a very bad thing for consumers.”

One of the parties that has taken a position on Ameren’s side, the office of St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, also says consumers will be hurt, but for the opposite reason.

In a letter sent last week to the PSC, City Counselor Michael Garvin wrote that Noranda’s request to reduce its rates would increase consumer rates by “more than 2 percent per year for the next decade” and cost city coffers $3 million over 10 years.

Irl Scissors, director of Missourians for a Balanced Energy Future, a utility advocacy group that generally pushes bills beneficial to Ameren, criticized the consumer groups’ work with Noranda. In effect, he said, they’re endorsing a rate increase on their own members.

“It is shocking and it is indefensible that some of these groups would just walk lockstep with whatever Noranda requests,” he said.

But Mott-Oxford said her goal and the coalition’s objective is to hold down utility rates.

“You don’t have to agree with people about every single thing that they do if you have a common goal,” she said.

Noranda’s request for a special rate case is nothing new — companies ask for incentives and special treatment all the time, Mott-Oxford said. She doesn’t celebrate it, but to hold down utility rates, her organization has found more success within a coalition than acting alone, she said.

“Who would you sit down with if you had to examine everyone’s life for absolute purity?” she said.