Power to the People, Literally

Now that Occupy Wall Street has succeeded in raising our awareness of the growing exploitation by the top 1 percent of earners of the other 99 percent, I am ever alert to examples of big, monopolistic, tone-deaf public companies putting profits ahead of people. After two big storms have hit with devastating effects on my birthplace in New England, I have found a big example -- Northeast Utilities and its subsidiary Connecticut Light and Power.

As of yesterday, almost 500,000 CLP homes and businesses were without power following the earlier-than-usual snowstorm that hit the northeastern U.S. at the beginning of the week. Why the large impact and slow recovery? Mostly, it is because the company has trimmed back its maintenance spending by better than 25 percent in the last three years, records show. The storms may have been acts of God, but the lack of tree trimming around power lines that were taken down by the storm was an act of a greed machine, CLP, that took in $3 billion from customers last year while charging the highest electricity rates in the continental U.S.

Large public utilities, historically profitable even in less troubled economic times, are a license to print money in today's "corporatists are people" political reality. Northeast Utilities is no exception. As power service came back to CLP's customers, the head of the company was calling for rate increases to cover the repair bills.

What can people in such circumstances do? Organize within their communities and seek to take ownership of all of its public utilities. Such action may not turn the lights back on right now, but if local folks were running into their utilities chiefs down at the local grocery store, maybe those managers would better remember who is funding their paychecks.