Wisconsin cabinet changes have plenty of revolving doors with dirty energy

You may have noticed that we're in the midst of our coldest stretch of the winter if you live in Wisconsin, with lows of -10 expected here in Madison for both Wednesday and Thursday. This naturally means higher heating costs to keep your house in a livable condition, and I want you to keep that reality in mind as you read about the shake-up in the Walker Administration that happened on Monday night.

Gov. Scott Walker announced a number of changes in the ranks of his top administrators Monday, including the replacement of state Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch with former Madison Gas & Electric executive Scott Neitzel.

Neitzel, who abruptly stepped down as senior vice president of the utility company late last week, will lead the powerful agency, which is responsible for the state’s two-year budget plan, introduced by Walker in early February.

Huebsch is moving to the Public Service Commission, where he’ll serve as one of three commissioners appointed by the governor. Ellen Nowak, who is currently a commissioner, will replace Phil Montgomery as chairperson, starting March 1.

Bob Seitz, previously a spokesman for Gogebic Taconite, has been named executive assistant for the Public Service Commission.

So we have a utility VP taking over arguably the most important position in the Governor's cabinet, replacing Huebsch, who moves on to the PSC, giving Walker appointees all 3 votes on the Commission. And oh yeah, Seitz scores a highly-paid appointment at that same utility commission than 3 years after his company allegedly worked with Walker to funnel a $700,000 donation to the Wisconsin Club for Growth to help Walker's campaign in the recall election of 2012. After Walker was retained and the GOP re-took both houses of the State Legislature, the first bill they passed was intended to clear the way for a Gogebic mine project up North (which has since busted along with other commodity prices). Oh, but I'm sure former PR man Seitz will act completely on the up-and-up in his new gig at the PSC.

Gee, you think the mining and utility interests are going to have a lot of constraints put on their desires to dig and pollute anywhere with these guys in charge? And if you think these guys are going to look out for consumers and limit electric price increases in the name of fairness, let me take you back to the last few weeks of 2014, when Madison Gas and Electric (the new DOA Secretary's former company), Milwaukee's WE Energies, and Wisconsin Power and Light in Central Wisconsin were given the OK to raise rates for residential customers. In fact, WE and MG + E pulled a scheme that raised fixed fees but lowered the per-unit outlet, which shifted even more of the burden to residential customers while giving a break to business ones.

This seems especially galling given the drop in gas prices in recent months, since this enables these utilities to grab huge profits due to the higher rates and lower cost of production. It's almost like this was the plan all along! Shoot, if I didn't know any better, I'd think it was something other than coincidence that soon-to-be PSC Commissioner Ellen Nowak was an attendee at a convention with We Energies' CEO, and Nowak recommended a price scheme that puts the screws to people who try to use alternative energy to save themselves money.

This is the real payoff of donations and "independent expenditures" from Koch Industries and the mining industry. Big profits for them and cushy taxpayer-funded appointments to big-time state jobs for a couple of the well-connected, while the everyday person gets the shaft from the higher rates. Enjoy that thought as you hunker down from the cold and see more of your take-home pay get burned up from these higher rates schemes in the coming weeks.