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Mr. Burns would be proud.
Hardworking New Yorkers could soon be hit with massive electricity-rate increases to subsidize the lavish lifestyles of the fat cats who run the city’s private power-generating companies, thanks to asleep-at-the-switch federal regulators who authorized an unjustified $525 million windfall for the firms.
Not that the honchos need help paying their own electric bills.
NRG Energy’s David W. Crane took home a shocking $6,525,562 last year, according to Forbes magazine. The company runs the 851-megawatt Arthur Kill power plant and the 520-megawatt Astoria Gas Turbine in Queens.
When he’s not at his power plants, Crane, 52, can be found on the private tennis court behind his stately Colonial manor in uber-wealthy Lawrenceville Township, NJ.
Russell Girling, CEO of TransCanada, which operates the massive Ravenswood 1,880-megawatt power plant in Long Island City and a smaller 417-megawatt gas turbine facility nearby, is paid even more than Crane.
Girling’s 2010 compensation was $6,941,349, according to Forbes.
Even Jack Fusco, CEO of the Texas-based energy firm Calpine, which runs a single 104-megawatt power plant in Queens, received $2.7 million in 2010.
Salaries and bonuses for the other big players, Mark Sudbey, CEO of US Power Generating Co., which has plants in Queens and Brooklyn, and Chuck McCall of Astoria Energy, are not public.
But Sudbey lives in a Colonial manse in posh Sandy Hook, Conn., complete with a pool. It doesn’t cost him a lot of energy to get to his office — it’s only a short scenic drive to Stamford.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the hikes because it incorrectly believed that the companies pay regular city property taxes on their plants, city officials said.
But, in fact, the plants receive major breaks.
The commission has said it will reconsider its decision.
But if the boondoggle stands, the city’s residents will be hit with a 12 percent increase in electric rates. Businesses will pay 17.5 percent more.
There’s no regulation that tells the executives what to do with their bonanza — and they can legally use it to line their pockets instead of increasing generating capacity.
Con Ed, which does not generate its own power but only transmits it to customers, said it has no choice but to pass that increase on to them.
The rate increases have infuriated Con Ed officials — who expect to take the blame, justified or not — as well as Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s congressional delegation.
“These guys are charging for a tax they aren’t even paying,” said Con Ed spokesman Michael Clendenin, which is lobbying the commission to revoke the increase. “We are trying to protect customers from an unjustified cost.”
Ten local US representatives have joined Sen. Chuck Schumer asking the commission to review it’s decision.
They called the new rate “neither necessary nor justified and would instead provide windfall profits for the current NYC generators.”
But, the Independent Power Producers of New York, a lobbying group, said the increase is justified because some members do pay some taxes and other costs have risen.