By Chris Peeks November 21, 2023
No, she did not mislead. She did not get her facts mistaken. No, the press did not misquote her. She did not even just bend the truth. Nor did she tell a little white lie. Twinkle Cavanaugh,in front of a Legislative committee, flat out perjured herself.
Had she been testifying in front of Congress she would be facing a criminal Indictment for her actions. The most egregious part of this is how she so smugly just lies. Giving any answer she wants, regardless of the truth. Twinkle is just gonna do whatever Twinkle wants to do. Fake news and alternative facts are all you will ever get from the Commissioner. And she is never held accountable.
EPI reported "In 2022, the Alabama Public Service Commission granted four rate increases to Alabama Power, adding almost $23 per month to the average residential bill, according to an investigation by the Opelika-Auburn News and the Dothan Eagle. Dominion Energy, a peer investor-owned utility based in Virginia, told its regulators that Alabama Power’s 2018-2022 average return on equity of 12.76%, a measure of a utility’s profitability, was a “high-end” outlier and 38% higher than its neighbor and sister company Georgia Power."
Not only that, "EPI’s analysis found that Alabama Power customers are paying more than $250 million per year in extra profits than they would be paying if Alabama Power earned a profit margin at allowed industry average rates, according to data published by the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for investor-owned utilities."
Furthermore, brazenly "Cavanaugh told a meeting of the Alabama Joint Interim Sunset Committee that Alabama Power’s return on equity (ROE) “went from 13 to 14 and a half percent allowable return when I got here. Today it is 5.65 to 6.05%, a very big difference.”
But Alabama Power’s ROE has remained between 12-13 percent from 2013-2022, despite Cavanaugh’s claims. Under Cavanaugh’s leadership in 2013, the PSC changed how it calculated the company’s return – but that change did nothing to reduce the return Alabama Power could collect from customers." They changed the formula when she took office and my sources tell me Jeremy Oden is the one who developed the formula.
People we have been lied to by this den of thieves for long enough. If Twinkle Cavanaugh told me the sun rose in the East and set in the West I would call her a liar. I wonder how much stock the Commissioner holds in the Southern Company?
Chris Peeks
Reporter and Columnist
Alabama Political Contributor