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Coldwater staff summarizes APPA legislative priorities after DC meetings
Summary
A staff member reported on a March visit to the APPA legislative rally in Washington, D.C., highlighting priorities such as restoring frozen grant funds, preserving tax-exempt municipal financing, permitting reform and grid reliability.
A Coldwater utility staff member reported that last week they attended the American Public Power Association (APPA) legislative rally in Washington, D.C., where they met with congressional staff and relayed priorities for municipal utilities.
The staff member said meetings included staff from Sen. Gary Peters and Rep. Tim Walberg; Sen. Elissa Slotkin's staff was unavailable due to illness. Key items the delegation emphasized were preserving tax-exempt financing for municipal bonds, seeking the unfreezing of certain grant funds that lower project costs, permitting reform to reduce multi-year project delays, and highlighting municipal utilities' role in affordability, reliability and accountability.
On tax-exempt financing the staff member said: "If we're unable to do tax-exempt financing for this we're looking probably 10 to 20% increase in the cost to our customers because of the additional financing requirements." The delegation also asked Congress to consider unfreezing roughly $1 million in AMP hydro grants that staff said would lower project costs and debt service if released.
Staff described permitting times for new generation as often taking three to five years because of federal and state approvals and said they urged reforms to shorten those timelines. The staff member said AMP units in nearby Marshall have run several times a month since coming online, and that AMP will operate and maintain the units the utility participates in.
The report was informational; no formal board action was recorded on the legislative briefing.
