Here we go again. Cable TV companies have introduced legislation at the Virginia General Assembly that will reduce their cost of doing business at your expense. The bill (HB 1186) is a poorly disguised rewrite of last year’s telecom bill, HB1439, which was sent by the General Assembly to the Virginia State Corporation Commission for study.

The SCC conducted an exhaustive study and issued a final report on November 1, 2011. Two specific conclusions of particular importance to NOVEC’s customer-owners were reached and included in the executive summary.

• Likely increase to electric rates “…any reduction to cooperatives' and electric investor-owned utilities' pole attachment rates will likely require an increase in consumers' electric rates if the utilities' revenue requirements remain the same.”
• Broadband expansion in underserved areas won’t happen “…No persuasive evidence was submitted in this proceeding that proved lower pole attachment rates would directly result in additional broadband deployment.”

The cable TV bill seeks to impose a very narrow definition of “just and reasonable,” which would only provide compensation for a small portion of the cost associated with the construction and maintenance of NOVEC’s overhead distribution system.

The bottom line is that this bill will not result in greater deployment of broadband in areas lacking sufficient customer density to make it profitable for the telecoms to extend their service. What it will do is provide an under recovery of NOVEC’s costs and that takes money directly out of your pocket. We think that’s a really bad idea and hope you agree strongly enough to contact your legislators in the Virginia House and Senate about this matter today. Tell them you don’t want to pay higher electric rates to subsidize cable TV and ask them to “kill” HB 1186.

The bill has been sent to the House of Delegates Commerce and Labor Committee.

Links for the Northern Virginia delegation include:

• Delegate David Albo
• Delegate Richard Anderson
• Delegate Dave Bulova 
• *Delegate Barbara Comstock
• Delegate Mark Dudenhefer
• Delegate Eileen Filler-Corn
• Delegeate Thomas Greason
• *Delegate Tim Hugo
• Delegate Mark Keam
• Delegate James LeMunyon
• Delegate Scott Lingamfelter
• Delegate Bob Marshall
• Delegate Joe May
• *Delegate Jackson Miller
• Delegate Randall Minchew
• Delegate Ken Plum
• Delegate David Ramadan
• *Delegate Tom Rust
• Delegate Luke Torian
• Delegate Michael Webert

 *Serves on Commerce and Labor Committee

Northern Virginia Senators

• Senator George Barker
• Senator Richard Black
• Senator Charles Colgan
• Senator Mark Herring
• Senator Janet Howell
• Senator Dave Marsden
• Senator Chap Petersen
• Senator Toddy Puller
• Senator Richard Stewart
• Senator Jill Vogel

If you are not sure who your representative is, you can visit the Virginia General Assembly website and use the Who's My Legislator tool to quickly and easily contact your representatives about this issue.