Texas Electric Cooperatives Government Relations 1122 Colorado 24 th Floor Austin, Texas 78701 Voice: (512) 454-0311 Direct #: (512) 486-6221 Fax: (512) 486-6225 http://www.texas-ec.org Testimony of Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC) Senate Business & Commerce Committee August 14, 2012 Eric Craven Senior Vice President, Government Relations & Legal Affairs
Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC) is the statewide association for the 66 distribution cooperatives and nine generation and transmission cooperatives serving Texas. Combined, the cooperatives serve more than two million meters in 241 of Texas 254 counties with 300,000 miles of line. More than 3 million Texans benefit directly from the efficient and economical operation of our taxpaying, not-for-profit businesses. Member-consumers of each system control their own independent local electric business in a democratic, truly American manner. The smallest system serves approximately 3,400 meters, and the largest over 240,000. Co-ops average a low 5.68 meters per mile of line. The cooperative business model continues to prove itself to be reliable and accountable to member-consumers. Residential and small commercial customers make up the bulk of electric co-op business. Being locally owned and governed, cooperatives still embody personalized service in a truly hometown environment.
Service Area Boundaries for Texas Electric Distribution Cooperatives 48 Dallam DALHART Sherman 60 Hansford 43 PERRYTON Ochiltree Lipscomb Hartley Moore Hutchinson Roberts Hemphill Oldham Potter Carson Gray Wheeler El Paso Hudspeth Culberson Jeff Davis Presidio Collingsworth Deaf Smith Randall Armstrong 15 Donley 22 WELLINGTON HEREFORD Swisher Parmer Castro 57 Briscoe Hall Childress TULIA 25 1 Floyd Hardeman 55 Motley Lamb MULESHOE Hale 36 Cottle 34 Foard Wichita Clay Bailey Wilbarger FLOYDADA LITTLEFIELD Montague 53 Lubbock Knox 29 13 Grayson 33 Lamar Cochran Hockley Crosby Dickens King Baylor Archer MUENSTER Cooke PARIS 59B LUBBOCK BLUEGROVE 21 17 Fannin BONHAM Red River Bowie OLNEY 66 54 VAN ALSTYNE Wise Delta Yoakum Terry Franklin 37 Morris Lynn Garza Kent Stonewall Haskell Jack CORINTH 6 Throckmorton DECATUR 18 Titus 35 20 14 Hunt Hopkins TAHOKA Young Denton Collin DOUGLASSVILLE Parker GREENVILLE Camp Cass Fisher4 59A Rockwall 67 Rains Kaufman Wood 63 Marion Gaines Dawson Borden Scurry Jones Shackelford Stephens Palo Pinto Tarrant Dallas QUITMAN GILMER ROBY AZLE 61 Upshur Harrison MERKEL Van Zandt Gregg Hood 62 KAUFMAN Smith 45 Johnson Andrews Martin Howard Mitchell Nolan Callahan Eastland CLEBURNE MARSHALL 58 Erath Rusk Somervell Ellis Taylor ITASCA Henderson Panola Comanche 41 49 Navarro Cherokee 10 11 HENDERSON Brown 27 Loving Winkler Ector Midland Glasscock Coke Bosque Hill Runnels CORSICANA Anderson 9 COLEMAN COMANCHE Hamilton Shelby Sterling Freestone McLennan RUSK Coleman HAMILTON Nacogdoches San Augustine Ward 12 Mills 24 26 Limestone Crane Upton Reagan Concho Coryell 28 SAN AUGUSTINE Leon Sabine Reeves SAN ANGELO MCGREGOR Falls Angelina Irion McCulloch Lampasas CROCKETT 16 Tom Green San Saba 42 Houston Trinity Bell Polk Newton 56 FRANKLIN Schleicher Robertson Menard Madison Jasper Pecos Crockett Burnet ELDORADO 3 50 Milam Grimes Mason Llano Walker Tyler BARTLETT 7 31 BRYAN LIVINGSTON Williamson Brazos 40 Sutton Kimble San Jacinto KIRBYVILLE Gillespie 46B Burleson Lee 8 JOHNSON CITY NAVASOTA Montgomery Hardin Terrell FREDERICKSBURG Liberty 46A Washington Blanco Travis 5 Waller Kerr Orange Hays Bastrop Val Verde Kendall Fayette Austin Edwards BASTROP 51 Brewster Real Comal Caldwell 19 Harris Jefferson Bandera BANDERA LA GRANGE BELLVILLE 2 Chambers Kinney Guadalupe 23 Colorado Medina Bexar Wharton Fort Bend 47 Galveston Uvalde 39 GONZALES Lavaca 65 BRACKETTVILLE Gonzales Wilson Brazoria HONDO EL CAMPO Dewitt Karnes 30 Maverick 64 EDNA Zavala Frio Atascosa 32 Matagorda Jackson VICTORIA KARNES CITY Goliad Victoria Calhoun Dimmit La Salle McMullen Bee Refugio Aransas Live Oak SINTON Jim Wells 52 San Patricio Nueces Webb 44 Duval ROBSTOWN Kleberg Zapata Jim Hogg Brooks Kenedy Starr Hidalgo Willacy 1122 Colorado St., 24th Floor Austin, TX 78701 (512) 454-0311 www.texas-ec.org 38 MERCEDES Cameron Service areas shown include multiple certificated areas and generally correspond to service area boundaries approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. 2012 Text and art copyrighted by Texas Electric Cooperatives Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of the map may be reproduced without the prior written permission of Texas Electric Cooperatives Inc. Original source map: C.H. Guernsey & Company
Cooperative Map Key Map Locations and Headquarters Towns COOPERATIVE MAP NUMBER HEADQUARTERS Bailey County ECA........... 1............... Muleshoe Bandera EC................. 2.............. Bandera Bartlett EC................. 3.............. Bartlett Big Country EC.............. 4.............. Roby Bluebonnet EC.............. 5.............. Bastrop Bowie-Cass EC.............. 6.............. Douglassville Bryan Texas Utilities......... 7.............. Bryan Central Texas EC............ 8.............. Fredericksburg Cherokee County ECA........ 9.............. Rusk Coleman County EC.......... 10............. Coleman Comanche EC............... 11.............. Comanche Concho Valley EC............ 12.............. San Angelo Cooke County ECA........... 13.............. Muenster CoServ Electric.............. 14.............. Corinth Deaf Smith EC.............. 15.............. Hereford Deep East Texas EC.......... 16............. San Augustine Fannin County EC............ 17.............. Bonham Farmers EC................. 18............. Greenville Fayette EC.................. 19............. La Grange Fort Belknap EC............. 20............. Olney Grayson-Collin EC........... 21.............. Van Alstyne Greenbelt EC................ 22............. Wellington Guadalupe Valley EC......... 23............. Gonzales Hamilton County ECA......... 24............. Hamilton Harmon EA................. 25............. Hollis, OK Heart of Texas EC............ 26............. McGregor HILCO EC................... 27............. Itasca Houston County EC.......... 28............. Crockett J-A-C EC................... 29............. Bluegrove Jackson EC................. 30............. Edna Jasper-Newton EC........... 31.............. Kirbyville Karnes EC.................. 32............. Karnes City Lamar County ECA........... 33............. Paris Lamb County EC............. 34............. Littlefield COOPERATIVE............ NUMBER...... HEADQUARTERS Lea County EC.............. 35............. Lovington, NM Lighthouse EC............... 36............. Floydada Lyntegar EC................. 37............. Tahoka Magic Valley EC............. 38............. Mercedes Medina EC.................. 39............. Hondo Mid-South Synergy.......... 40............. Navasota Navarro County EC........... 41.............. Corsicana Navasota Valley EC........... 42............. Franklin North Plains EC............. 43............. Perryton Nueces EC.................. 44............. Robstown Panola-Harrison EC.......... 45............. Marshall Pedernales EC.............. 46 A, B......... Johnson City Rio Grande EC............... 47............. Brackettville Rita Blanca EC.............. 48............. Dalhart Rusk County EC............. 49............. Henderson Sam Houston EC............. 50............. Livingston San Bernard EC............. 51.............. Bellville San Patricio EC.............. 52............. Sinton South Plains EC............. 53............. Lubbock Southwest Arkansas......... 54............. Texarkana, AR Southwest Rural EA.......... 55............. Tipton, OK Southwest Texas EC.......... 56............. Eldorado Swisher EC................. 57............. Tulia Taylor EC................... 58............. Merkel Tri-County EC............... 59 A,B.......... Azle Tri-County EC, OK........... 60............. Hooker, OK Trinity Valley EC............. 61............. Kaufman United Cooperative Services... 62............. Cleburne Upshur Rural EC............. 63............. Gilmer Victoria EC................. 64............. Victoria Wharton County EC.......... 65............. El Campo Wise EC.................... 66............. Decatur Wood County EC............ 67............. Quitman
What is a pole attachment? It is hardware attached to our poles our property that is not for electric service, but rather cable and telecommunications service. Holes are drilled into our poles and their equipment is attached to the pole. They are renting space on our pole. In some limited cases they use our easements, but in other situations, the cable company must secure its own easements, as many of our easements are on private property and for electric service only. Who is responsible for the property? As owner of the poles, a cooperative is responsible for their placement and maintenance. The cooperative is also responsible for the safety of employees who work on and around the facilities, as well as the public, as they walk, ride and drive under and around the poles, wires and other equipment. A cooperative s procedures for pole attachments involve steps that are necessary to ensure the reliability and safety of the cooperative s distribution system, including: 1. Verifying that adequate space and mechanical strength is present to safely accommodate the proposed attachments; 2. Verifying that the proposed attachments do not reduce the integrity and reliability of the cooperative s electric system; 3. Verifying that attachments installed on our poles comply with the National Electric Safety Code requirements and construction standards; and 4. Processing costs for any modifications to our facilities necessary to accommodate the proposed attachments. How do cooperatives and attaching companies handle their business today? By contract. There are literally hundreds of such contracts. We negotiate a contract with the attaching company that sets out the procedures for attaching, as well as the rate or rent for the use of our property. The contracts set out the procedures for making lawful attachments. After the contract takes effect, the attaching company is supposed to make requests for attachments and the cooperative is supposed to respond within the time frame set out in the contract. Some cooperatives have only one or two companies attaching to their facilities, while others have multiple companies and multiple cables per company attached to their poles. There is a point at which installing more attachments cannot be accommodated on a particular pole or costly upgrades to the facilities become necessary. The statewide average annual rate per attachment for cooperatives is a modest $8.47. The rates are lowest in the areas of the state with the lowest population density. Does the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulate pole attachments for electric cooperatives? No. While the FCC regulates pole attachments for large investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives are not subject to FCC jurisdiction. Since cooperatives are member-owned and controlled and our members receive both electric and communications services, Congress determined that electric cooperatives were better positioned than the FCC to
establish fair and reasonable attachment arrangements. Cooperatives have a strong incentive to see that their member-consumers receive communications service and that they do not overly subsidize the business of the cable and telecommunications industries. Has a cable provider ever been denied access to a cooperative s poles? No. We do require that a contract be in place and we do expect the attaching companies to live up to the terms of the contract. Our discussions have thus far focused on six issues (these are all matters currently handled through contracts between the interested parties): Rate Formula - The cable companies want electric cooperatives to set their attachment rates using the Federal Communications Commission formulas which the FCC revised in 2010 to reduce the rate electric utilities are allowed to charge for attachments. Cooperatives believe that the FCC formulas require electric utilities to subsidize the large cable and telecom companies by setting pole attachment fees artificially low. We have instead proposed that a single Texas formula apply in the event that cooperatives and attachers are unable to agree on a negotiated rate within a reasonable time. The Texas formula we proposed more accurately captures the true cost to our consumers of using their property and is currently being used by some Texas cooperatives to calculate pole attachment rates. While the large investor-owned electric utilities in Texas are under the jurisdiction of the FCC and are thus required to subsidize cable and telecom interests, AEP, Entergy and Oncor have appealed the new federal rule to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, along with a number of other electric utilities from around the country. The Legislature established the FCC telecom formula as a cap for municipally-owned utilities in SB 5 in 2005. This FCC telecom rate produced a significantly higher rate than the new FCC formula. It would be best to ask the municipally-owned utilities how the new formula affects their systems finances. Unauthorized & Unsafe Attachments We proposed several provisions to address the widespread problem of cable companies placing unauthorized and unsafe attachments on cooperative property. Those include requiring a contract and permit before attachment, a written plan of correction for unpermitted or problem attachments, and the imposition of costs and sanctions for non-compliance. Abandoned Attachments We proposed that the cable companies help resolve the widespread problem of abandoned attachments by agreeing to post a bond to pay for the removal of abandoned attachments and agreeing to a provision authorizing cooperatives to dispose of those attachments after notice to the attaching company.
Make-Ready Timeline - The cable companies asked that co-ops follow the FCC make-ready timeline. We proposed following the FCC make-ready timeline with some adjustments to account for the operations of smaller systems. Periodic Audit & Back Charges The cable companies asked that pole attachment audits be conducted by an independent third party auditor and that back charges (charges applied after unauthorized attachments are spotted) be limited to a set period of time. Discussions have focused on the timing of the audits and who should pay for the audits. We have proposed that back charges be limited to the audit period and that there should be a pole count benchmark set at the end of each audit. Enforcement of Make-Ready & Contract Disputes The cable companies asked the coops to agree to binding third party arbitration for make-ready disputes. We proposed that all disputes over technical matters that might delay the attachment process go to non-binding arbitration, allowing other disputes to go directly to state district court. TEC and the cable representatives agreed to consider the pros and cons of binding vs. non-binding arbitration for time-sensitive attachment issues. Easements The cable companies are responsible for obtaining their own easements and they shouldn t be relying on electric service easements (a pole attachment agreement allows access to the poles and facilities but does not cover the land over which the cable runs). We would like to have an indemnity provision to protect cooperatives against liability for an attaching company s failure to secure its own easement from the property s landowners.