TFTT Report
NAWC’s Rob Powelson Takes Editorial Board to Task for Misleading Narrative on Utility Valuation Reform
The Philadelphia Inquirer published NAWC President and CEO Rob Powelson’s letter to the editor in response to its recent editorial that included many misleading statements about Pennsylvania’s Act 12, the Commonwealth’s utility valuation reform law. Powelson chided the Editorial Board for continuing its “uniformed vendetta against rate-regulated water utilities.”
“With its recent opinion on the reversal of the sale of the East Whiteland sewer system, The Inquirer Editorial Board once again demonstrates how little it understands the highly nuanced and complicated issues surrounding the water industry, and instead continues its uninformed vendetta against rate-regulated water utilities. The Editorial Board suggests that local officials who are elected by their constituents should not be trusted when they decide that partnering with a professional water company is in the best interest of their communities. But yet, these same elected officials should be trusted to run a highly complex and capital-intensive water system? Readers deserve more than this simplistic narrative of ‘for-profit companies are bad, municipal governments are good.’ I encourage readers and our communities to give more weight to their trusted, local elected officials than the people behind the keyboards on The Inquirer Editorial Board.”
Also be sure to check out Truth from the Tap’s Act 12 Backgrounder.