"Some of Greensboro’s plans to tighten local rules for trimming trees near power lines could threaten the safety and reliability of electric service while boosting consumer costs, a lawyer for Duke Energy told state utilities commissioners Wednesday.
That would be the outcome if the city’s plans spur other local governments across the state to create their own rules for “vegetation management practices,” Duke lawyer Dave Pokela said.
“If we turn this over to hundreds of local units, we’re going to inevitably have an emphasis more on aesthetics and less on safety, reliability and cost,” Pokela said. “We don’t need the (utilities) commission regulating and then have local governments regulating the same things at the same time.”
Pokela made his remarks during a lengthy hearing Wednesday before a three-member panel of the N.C. Utilities Commission, which is reviewing several proposed changes that Greensboro officials hope to make in regulating Duke’s efforts to keep trees from causing power outages."
And so it will be despite S Mujeeb Shah-Khan's arguments to the contrary, the courts and the State Utilities Commission will view the case from a statewide perspective and not just one city. Clueless? Not really. Had Nancy Vaughan really give a damn she would have lobbied the state legislature to make the changes state wide instead of wasting time at the state level. After all, it's not like she doesn't have the means, her husband is retired State Senator Don Vaughan who is being considered for the head of the North Carolina Democratic Party-- the reason Nancy changed her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. If Don doesn't know how to lobby Raleigh no one does.
But that would have taken longer and with an election coming up she needed a green pony to ride into office. And what's greener than trees?
And if I'm wrong then Mayor Vaughan and Mujeeb Shah-Khan are morons. You decide.
