Your Opinion: Response on Ameren facts

Dear Editor:

Again I was amused that an opinion writer to the News Tribune believes that I was conjuring up beliefs regarding Ameren's financial position. Quote, "It's simply irresponsible to allow readers to make up facts of their own."

Indisputable Fact: Ameren has had rate increases approved by the MPSC these past six years to the tune of 43 percent. Most Ameren consumers are suffering/coping with these rate increases. Indisputable Fact: A story that appeared last March in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed that the "utility's own financial data showed they earned millions of dollars more than authorized in 2012." Indisputable Fact: This same article reported that in 2012 Ameren earned $80 million more than authorized when its percent return on equity exceeded the 10.2 percent that the MPSC had authorized. None of this was never contested by Ameren as erroneous.

Irresponsible - I'll leave that to your News Tribune readers.

I'm curious how Ameren managed to spend about $6 billion dollars ($600 million per year for the last 10 years) for infrastructure improvements if they are as poor as they contend. Wow, one wonders about the validity of this statement.

Ameren may have a process for ensuring anything over-earned gets back to the consumers, but to date, I have never been a recipient of such action. The writer claims it's happened twice in the last six months, however if this were to occur you could wager your bottom dollar that Ameren would highly publicize this event and you would win. Perhaps he is the only recipient of such action, but I seriously doubt that. Irresponsible statement, perhaps.