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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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The Washington State Attorney General's Office has challenged proposed gas and electric rate increases by Puget Sound Energy, saying they are unjustified.
PSE's rate increases would generate an additional $237 million in revenue, according to a news release from the AGO today.
Simon ffitch, chief of the AGO's Public Counsel Section, said the utility's request is much larger than is needed to cover its costs.
"PSE's customers have been hit hard recently with frequent rate hikes - it's important that this increase be no more than absolutely necessary," ffitch said.
The state contends that a total of $11.3 million in increased revenue - $4.3 million in revenue from electric rates and $7 million in revenue from gas rates - would be more reasonable.
That's $226 million in revenue less than PSE is requesting, according to the news release.
Dorothy Bracken, PSE's spokeswoman, said the utility had not yet seen how the state came up with its numbers.
But, she said, PSE's proposed increases are to cover the company's higher costs.
"The amount of the revenue request that PSE put in the rate increase reflects actual cost of doing business," Bracken said.
The AGO's Public Counsel experts provided the state Utility and Transportation Commission with recommendations on reducing PSE's proposed rate increases.
They included:
- Reducing the company's shareholder profit margin.
- Reducing executive compensation.
- Rejecting the $500,000 cost of PSE's privately owned aircraft.
- Not requiring customers to pay for costs of executive parking at Sea-Tac or for PSE's corporate suite at Safeco field.
- Requiring the company to enhance low income programs.
Bracken said that PSE will be reviewing the state's testimony over the next month and preparing its response.
The UTC is expected to issue a decision on whether the proposed rate increase stands by November.
