Coop Legislative Activity

Here we will attempt to provide news and information involving efforts in the United States Congress and various state legislatures to deal with the abuses by Coops involving transparency, governance and abusive retention of capital credits of member owners of Coops.

Some of these links take you outside of the Coop Litigation News website so we aren't responsible for the content.

---

Editorials

PEDERNALES ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE (Texas)

Many enablers led to indictments in scandal

Austin American-Statesman

Saturday, June 20, 2009

It took a civil case, a criminal investigation and relentless reporting by the American-Statesman to shed light on how the ousted leadership of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative spent ratepayer money.

All of that probing and digging resulted in a civil settlement, a stack of newspaper articles and now criminal indictments accusing Bennie Fuelberg, the former PEC general manager, and Walter Demond, the co-op's longtime legal adviser, of felonies.  If convicted, both men are looking at lengthy prison terms.

Texas Legislature

Texas Legislature should approve reform bill

Corruption at Pedernales prompted calls for more accountability.

Austin American-Statesman

Friday, May 29, 2009

Important legislation to make the state's 63 electric co-operatives more accountable to their members almost died this week, an innocent victim of a drive-by shooting in an unrelated partisan political warfare.  But it's still alive, and we urge lawmakers to approve it in these dying days of the current session.

A joint effort of Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, and Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, the reform legislation had cleared the Senate and the House State Affairs Committee on a 13-0 vote.

Proposed Legislation

Texas Senate Bill 921 (Texas)

For a discussion of Texas Senate Bill 921 see teh May 28, 2009, Austin American-Statesman Editorial above endorsing this legislation in Texas "relating to access by the members of electric cooperatives to meetings of the boards of directors and certain information of the electric cooperatives."

The link below takes you to the Texas Legislature's website with the status, history and text of SB 921.

US Congress

PEDERNALES ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE (Texas)

Subpoenaed Witnesses Evade House Oversight Committee

Cooper and Committee unearth fraud in electric co-op industry--and their lobbyist doesn't like it

WASHINGTON--Congressman Jim Cooper and fellow members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today held a hearing on fraud and abuse in the electric co-op industry, but two key witnesses didn't show.  Bennie Fuelberg and W.W. Bud Burnett, the former general manager and president of Texas' Pedernales Electric Cooperative, evaded Congressional subpoenas, indicating through attorneys that if they had testified before Congress they would have invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate.

Fuelberg and Burnett are accused by angry co-op members of stealing millions of dollars of customer money, spending it on their own exorbitant salaries, lavish trips and even second homes in nearby New Mexico.  Pedernales' exploits have been documented by reporter Claudia Grisales of the Austin American-Statesman.  A civil lawsuit in the case is currently on appeal.

Cooper, meanwhile, documented a pattern of co-op mismanagement in an article he wrote for the Harvard Journal on Legislation.  The article was included in the Congressional record at today's hearing. "Too many electric co-ops have turned away from their historic role as exciting, pro-consumer organizations and have instead taken on deeply troubling anti-consumer behaviors," Cooper wrote in the article.  "Carefully considered, member-friendly reforms are long overdue in order to protect the rights of the co-ops’ legal owners, including members’ rights to receive refunds of $3 billion to $9 billion of capital credits.  In addition, the conservation and environmental impact of co-op decision-making must be considered.  It is time for members to take back their property and their co-ops, for the good of themselves and their country."