The electric lawyer aid bozo test

Yesterday’s Tribune reported that the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation is preparing to shovel over a half a million dollars into the legal and analytical matters pertaining to getting a power plant built here. This on the heels of a hilariously inept–and probably corrupt–bidding process that managed to attract the ire of some U.S. congressmen.

A half a million bucks for legal work? But doesn’t CUC have an in house attorney? Yes, the last time I checked. If the attorney isn’t qualified to delve into energy matters, then why is he on staff?

Meanwhile, the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino continues to produce its own electricity because it’s cheaper than buying it from CUC.
The question to my mind isn’t how to force the Dynasty into getting bled by CUC, the issue is why the CNMI tolerates a utility that is so inefficient that hotels can produce energy cheaper than the utility can.

Having worked in the energy industry, it seems obvious to me that the solution is to privatize the energy industry here. We’ve already got the power grid installed, so there’s no reason that a number of electricity producers couldn’t hook up to the grid and sell their power. If the Dynasty can generate juice cheaper than the CUC can, then maybe the Dynasty should be selling its surplus electricity to the rest of us (or at least those of us on Tinian).

In one sense, the issue is probably moot, given that the local economy–and the demand for electricity–is more likely to shrink than to expand in the near future. But it does demonstrate that the Commonwealth itself is often times its biggest enemy in economic affairs. We can’t blame the Feds for CUC’s bungling; we can’t blame the Asian crisis for it, either…the blame rests squarely here.

And, speaking of the Feds, I don’t think they’ve let CUC off of the scrutiny hook. I wouldn’t be surprised if some gumshoes were snooping around CUC, compiling information on how and why certain decisions are made over there. There is some pretty strange documentation circulating on these matters. How the CNMI gets itself into these bizarre jams is a mystery to me.

In boom times, maybe a lot of ineptitude can be masked by the sheer power of economic momentum. In tough times, though, a lot of interrelated factors can start to unravel pretty darned quick. It won’t take much more bad luck for things here to begin to pretty much fall apart. Nobody can predict luck, though, so we don’t know how close to the edge of the economic cliff we really are.

In the meantime, we’ll just muddle along and entertain ourselves with the news coming from CUC. The truth really is stranger than fiction, and my pals in the U.S. energy industry have sometimes insinuated that I’m merely spinning a fictional yarn when I pass on the latest goings on here. Nobody, least of all me, has an imagination wild enough to do justice to the CUC’s outlook, though. Nobody could make this stuff up. It just ain’t possible.