Your Opinion: Ignore rhetoric; defeat ISRS

Dear Editor:

Very recently I decided to ease up on my viewpoints regarding the ISRS fiasco, but the May 10 opinion letters extolling us on the need to pass SB207 negated that decision.

After reading both letters I came to the conclusion that the rhetoric sounded more like Sen Kehoe and/or his lobbyists than the writers' opinion.

Rhetoric is defined as empty talk, fine sounding but insincere or empty language. The senator stated that this ISRS needs to be like what the gas companies have. Well, lo and behold here comes SB240 that completely changes the playing field on the existing gas surcharge. So if the gas surcharge was the model to duplicate for Ameren, what happened to change that? Double talk?

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's opinion column on May 6, was headlined, "To-Do-List." Their view listed three items and one of those was identified as, "Stop Sneaky Utility Bill." I quote the following from their piece "It is, quite simply, a money-grab by regulated monopoly utility companies that by all accounts are doing quite well. If it weren't such a bad bill, we'd have to take our hats off to the utility lobby for their clever shell game". The Post-Dispatch has concluded like a number of utility consumers, that Ameren is doing quite well, it's a monopoly, and a scam, con job, a shell game.

The House Majority Floor leader, Speaker of the House, and Gov. Nixon need to step up to the plate and kill bills 207 and 240 now.

A small indication on how well they are doing is how well their CEO is blessed financially. His pay for 2012 was listed as over $6 million, an increase of 7 percent over 2011. How many people do you know who received a 7 percent increase, probably none, more likely many lost their jobs. Well after musing this over, remember there is a chairman, president, a CFO who I'm sure were compensated like Mr. Voss, their CEO. Greed is personified by the likes of these folks.