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Officials: Fuel surcharge a dead issue
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Posted on Jan 21 2005
The fuel surcharge fee issue is now good as dead, according to a lawmaker and the chairman of the Commonwealth Utility Corp. Board of Directors.
“That’s a dead issue right now in the board,” said Vice Speaker Timothy Villagomez, who chairs the House Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications.
Members of the House panel met with CUC officials last week to discuss key issues, including the proposed implementation of fuel surcharge fee.
“It died,” said CUC board chair Frank Guerrero when asked, citing that the board had never reached a consensus on that particular issue.
“It was put on the agenda knowing that they’re going to kill it. It’s a waste of time for me. You see, the board is not ready to address it, so why put it [on] the agenda?” said Guerrero.
He said he would not initiate any more discussions on it. “I don’t want to bring it up knowing that the same board that killed it is going to kill it again,” he said.
Guerrero said the planned implementation of fuel surcharge fee could not take place without the board adopting a policy first.
“My position is to have a [fuel surcharge fee] policy in place regardless of how much to assess as a fee. Why discuss it when you don’t want to put in a policy in the first place. The board didn’t vote for such a policy,” he said.
The CUC management had eagerly pushed for the fuel surcharge fee last year, citing that it would incur huge budget shortfalls without resorting to such a scheme.
Under the initial plan, CUC would implement a fuel surcharge fee of 3.5 cents per kwh for government customers and a surcharge of 1.5 cents per kwh for all other classes of customers starting December 2004.
