04.06.2004
SCE Proposes Business Rate Discount
to Help Retain Jobs and Attract New Businesses
Proposal aimed at small-to-large
manufacturing and medium-to-large commercial businesses
ROSEMEAD, Calif., April 6, 2004 —
Southern California Edison (SCE) today filed a rate discount
proposal with the California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) designed to help retain or expand existing Southern
California businesses and to attract new businesses.
The program would offer companies likely
to shut down or to locate elsewhere due to high energy costs
a five-year discount on their electricity rate – 25%
in year one and five percent less each of the remaining
four years.
“State government and industry officials
are searching for ways to stimulate California’s business
climate,” said SCE VP of Commercial Customers Bill
Bryan. “Offering at-risk businesses a rate incentive
to stay in California or relocate here is a proven approach
to achieving this important objective.”
CPUC review of SCE’s proposal is
expected to take several months. If approved, the rate discount
program would call for rigorous qualifications, requiring
applicants to document the fact that, but for the program’s
rate incentive, they would be forced to leave the area or,
if not yet located in Southern California, unable to place
a facility in the region.
Although available to all qualifying business
customers with 200 kilowatts or more of electrical “demand”
(the amount of energy needed at a point in time), SCE’s
proposal would target manufacturing companies, the most
electricity-intensive industries. Sources* estimate that
California lost 288,000 manufacturing jobs between 1998
and 2003 and that manufacturing sales declined $98.2 billion.
The top three reasons businesses give for relocating out
of state are insufficient room, the cost of doing business
in California, and the cost of occupancy and utilities.
“Ultimately, retaining and attracting
businesses means saving and creating jobs,” said Bryan.
“That’s good for our customers, for California,
and for our own business.”
Customers wanting to follow the progress
of SCE’s proposal, to be called the Economic Development
Rate, through the regulatory review process can do so online
at www.sce.com by clicking on “Regulatory Info Center”
and then “Open Proceedings Before the CPUC.”
* U.S. Census, Bizminer, California
Department of Finance Data, Los Angeles Economic Development
Corporation.
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