News & Legislative Reports
Rep. Miklos reports the latest news while he serves you in the Texas Legislature.
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Rep. Miklos reports on his journey to Austin to serve you in the Texas Legislature.
July 27th, 2010
Atmos Is Acting Like Wall Street
When a company delivers a service, like electricity or natural gas, they deserve to be rewarded for giving the public a vital need and creating jobs. When one of those companies endangers thousands by neglecting to replace dangerous and dilapidated pipelines, they need to fix the problem and apologize. They don’t need to compound the problem with the sort of corporate greed we’ve seen on Wall Street. Continue reading »
Read More Robert Reports »
State Representative Robert Miklos Calls on Atmos to do Right by Consumers
Mesquite, TX — State Representative Robert Miklos voiced his opposition to a plan to allow Atmos Energy and other natural gas providers to collect profits while replacing faulty steel gas lines that have caused deadly explosions across North Texas. Part of the plan would allow Atmos Energy and other gas retailers to recoup the full costs of replacing the lines, plus an additional 10% profit.
“Why should Atmos or any other utility profit from replacing their own dilapidated and dangerous infrastructure?” Rep. Miklos said. “It’s one thing for all of us to share in the costs of these long overdue safety upgrades, but does Atmos really deserve to make an additional profit out of our pockets just for doing the minimum to save lives? No one pays us to put a safety inspection sticker on our car. This is the same old Wall Street double standard.”
Earlier today, the Dallas Morning News ran an editorial describing this sort of profiteering as “unconscionable,” and urging local governments to “be vigilant in monitoring the companies to make sure they don’t profit one penny from this proposed order.”
Representative Miklos agreed, adding that he was “glad that the Railroad Commission and Atmos finally decided to do something about these explosions. The burden is now on local governments. I will work with the cities of Balch Springs, Mesquite and Sunnyvale to keep their citizens from paying higher utility rates to fund another corporate bailout.
Representative Robert Miklos represents House District 101, which includes the City of Mesquite, where one family’s home was destroyed by an explosion due to a faulty compression coupling link in 2009. Representative Miklos has called on the Texas Railroad Commission in the past to replace faulty steel lines and compression coupling links.
