West County Democrats hosted Aimee Robertson, a Behavioral Analyst with Missouri First Steps to speak about DEI and Child Advocacy. She reminded us that within the targets of DEI purge of our government are protections for disabled Americans that provide equal access to education and job opportunities, within their capabilities. Too often, people with physical or mental disabilities are dismissed from learning with peers or discriminated against in the workplace. Along with race and gender, DEI initiatives were intended extend opportunity and inclusion for all ‘others’ in our society.
Ms. Robertson’s work is primarily with children, many disabled physically, mentally or emotionally and she has become aware of the lax standards for childcare facilities and the shoddy oversight of these facilities. She has been working with lawmakers in Jefferson City to advocate for stronger licensing qualifications and more visible reporting of daycare infractions so parents can make informed decisions about with whom to entrust their children. So, as our legislature continues to trim funding for education and childcare, there is a bill in the Missouri House, HB637, to at least make these infractions more visible to parents researching facilities for their children. Baby steps, but progress.
Legislative Report – March 10, 2025 Glenn Koenen
“Nothing will stand in our way.”
Donald Trump, 1/20/25 N Y Times
Federal Items:
Reviewing the crazy, mean and illegal activities of Donald Trump and his co-president Elon Musk takes weeks. Each day they generate more outrageous actions than any previous administration (including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush) “accomplished” in a year.
The bottom line is that Trump will get most of what he wants, no matter how bizarre.
CNN’s Jake Tapper has noted multiple times that he is sure Trump believes what he says – Ukraine started their war with Russia, government bureaucrats answer to a Democratic-controlled “deep state,” and, other countries pay tariff levied by the United States among hundreds of other absurdities. That sort of detachment from reality will be our reality until January 2029.
There will be a reckoning. For example, thousands of federal workers fired for “poor performance” despite having great evaluations will eventually find courtrooms. An American king can fire a worker but labor law states clearly that you cannot lie about their performance, thereby hurting their chances for future employment.
Congress, meanwhile, is utterly incapable of doing its job. The good news is that the GOP’s lack of 60 votes in the Senate will stop the worst excesses. The bad news is that the special (and very suspect) rules of the Reconciliation process – a trick used by Democrats and Republicans over the years – will allow a great many bad ideas to become law.
For example, rather than passing the past-due Farm Bill, it is expected that Congress will starve SNAP [food stamps] of about one-third of their current appropriation in the Reconciliation bill funding government till the end of September. Money for school meals is also at high risk.
Fortunately, despite GOP control on both ends of the Capitol the House and Senate have tremendous differences on how the government ought to be keep functioning, and, on what to do about the debt ceiling before March 15th.
In a slight touch of justice, last November Congress passed legislation to offset some of the disparity caused by the deduction of government pensions from Social Security calculations. Payments – many from $1,500 to $3,000 per recipient – have begun being processed.
State Items:
Governor Mike Kehoe must have had the same math teacher as Donald Trump.
Mikey claims to believe that Missouri can dramatically reduce state income tax rates as the beginning of a process to eliminate the state income tax. (For the record, the state income tax is the greatest source of General Revenue necessary to fund education and em3dical care.)
In the real world, Missouri’s current income is not meeting current expenses: had the state not lowered the income tax maximum rate from 6% to 4.7% Missouri would not have a serious budget shortfall. As it stands, the Kehoe FY2026 [7/1/25 – 6/30/26] Budget depends on consuming the biggest chunk of the state’s current $4 billion surplus.
Still, expected to pass this session are a number of revenue-reducing items…
- Eliminating income tax on capital gains.
- A 100% state tax credit for donations to pregnancy resource centers.
- Enhanced tax credits for donations to “scholarships” to private and parochial schools.
Note that Mikey has also proposed adding $50 million in General Revenue to that scholarship program while shortchanging the Foundation Formula allocation.
The legislature will place a constitutional amendment severely limiting abortion on a 2026 ballot: exceptions for rape and incest will only be allowed if the female has reported the crime to the police prior to seeking medical intervention.
It is very possible that the GOP will force through the overturning of the increased minimum wage and paid sick leave proposition approved by voters. This may happen in the confusion of the last hours of the session.
Who wants to pay an additional $1,100 or more on their utility bills each year?
TODAY, at 1:00 p.m., the House Utilities Committee will have a sham hearing on Senate Bill 4.
Back in 1977 Missouri voters passed a measure prohibiting utilities from collecting money from customers to pay for proposed or in-progress construction projects. (The utility may add the cost of the completed project to their base after it is in service.) SB 4 allows customers to be forced to pay for proposed projects.
The Consumer Council of Missouri [ www.mocnsymers.org ] expects that SB 4 will quickly add $1,115 to the average customer’s total utility bills each year.
Also, in current rate cases the proposed increase is evaluated against already incurred costs. This bill would allow the use of a ‘future test year’ – an accounting guess – as the factual basis for new rates.
The Public Service Commission is the arbiter of utility rates. The current chair – a former staffer to Mike Parson – ignored the impartiality by the PSC when she testified in favor of Ameren’s current rate case!
Oh yes, the PSC chair’s husband is a registered lobbyist for Missouri American Water.
A Democrat filibuster in the Senate softened but could not prevent passage of giving control of the St. Louis City police back to a state-appointed panel. Due to a previous voter-approved item, the city will have to commit at least 25% of its revenue to police services. It also appears that the six member board (the city Mayor and five Senate confirmed members) could have the power to require the city to spend substantially more than that 25%.
URGENT Call to Action: SB4 Will Raise Your Utility Rates;
Contact House Utilities Committee Members Now
- Senate Substitute # 2 for Senate Bill 4 (SB4), an anti-consumer bill that will cause utility bills for customers captive to monopoly companies to rise at least $1,115 per year, was passed by the Missouri Senate on February 24 (22-11 in a bi-partisan manner) and has now been assigned to the House Utilities Committee.
- We expect a hearing of this bill as early as Wednesday, March 12.
- Please contact members of the House Utilities Committee immediately to share your opposition to this bill and how higher bills would impact on your household. See the Committees tab at www.house.mo.gov for a list of members.
- Write a letter to the editor expressing your opposition to SB4.
- Start educating state representatives (especially your own!) about this bill. Ask them to vote no if the bill moves onto the House calendar and to floor debate.
Background
Missouri utility prices are rising much faster than national inflation and far exceeding wage growth and Social Security cost of living adjustments. Electric and gas rates in Missouri have risen higher in Missouri since 2008 than in all but three states, according to the Retail Energy Supply Association. SB4 strips away current consumer protections and stacks the deck in favor of monopoly investor-owned utility companies and their stockholders. What protections do we lose?
- Electric companies cannot charge customers for power plants that are not “fully operational.” This ban was created by initiative process in 1976, with Missourians voting 2-1 that monopolies must invest their own money to build plants, not ours.
- The Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) bases current rates on actual costs that have been audited and evaluated against prudent spending standards. SB4 would ground our rates in budgeted amounts instead.
- Ratemaking is a comprehensive process, looking at all expenses and factors instead of singling out selected rising costs as a trigger for increased rates.
HERE ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS PARTS OF SB4:
Construction-Work-In-Progress (CWIP)
- SB4 would overturn the current ban on CWIP.
- Utility companies have not demonstrated any real financial need to overturn the will of the people by implementing CWIP. Instead, they are fearmongering, hinting that the lights will not come on if they do not get CWIP.
- The Callaway I nuclear plant was almost completely built without pre-charging consumers though CWIP.
- CWIP in the rate base reduces incentives for management to carefully control project costs and scheduling.
- CWIP has led to massive abuses in other states:
- In South Carolina consumers were charged billions of dollars for a power plant (V.C. Summer) that was never completed.
- In Georgia, a CWIP-funded nuclear power plant (Vogtle) had cost overruns at around $17 billion, with the final project cost reaching approximately $35 billion, significantly higher than the initial estimate of $14 billion.
- CWIP socializes the risk and privatizes the profit – while we are held captive to monopoly investor-owned companies, without the ability to shop for lower rates.
Future Test Year
- Water and gas bills would be based on utility company guesses about future expenditures rather than actual audited costs, required by current law.
- This rewards higher costs with higher rates, whereas our current system has built in cost controls since utility companies must justify money they have already spent when they come before the PSC.
- The evidence from other states that use Future Test Year is that our bills would be 10-15% higher for the same level of service.
Plant-In-Service-Accounting (PISA)
- The legislature already granted PISA in the past decade, creating much of our current utility inflation in MO. SB4 would expand current PISA law, resulting in more profits for utilities.
- PISA tracks only selected increasing costs, while ignoring favorable changes in other costs and revenue growth between test years, factors that ought to lower our rates.
IMPARTIALITY OF THE MO PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION ABANDONED
Equally concerning to the Consumers Council of Missouri is that PSC Chair Kayla Hahn has been vigorously lobbying for CWIP in the Capitol Building, even testifying in support of CWIP bills in a House hearing in late January. The PSC has traditionally not testified for or against utility legislation. Consumers expect this quasi-judicial body to remain neutral. At rate hearings, the PSC is sequestered away from the utility companies and customers during the question-and-answer portion of the agenda in order to safeguard their impartiality, so this cheerleading for CWIP by the PSC raises ethical questions.
For more information, email info@moconsumer.org.