(Voluntary update: When I posted this, I hadn’t spotted BP’s earlier post on the same subject. Didn’t mean to steal anyone’s thunder.)
There’s been a series of articles in the Burlington Free Press lately about IBM, and it’s pretty much been portents of doom. “IBM’s Vermont Plant Continues to Lag.” “Economist Forecasts IBM Layoffs.” And, of course, the ever-popular play-one-community-against-another, “Iowa Woos IBM.”
So now, in the 1/22 edition, “Plant Wants Energy Flexibility.” In which IBM declares that it wants to end its payments to Efficiency Vermont.
The company wants the state to allow large corporations that agree to do at least $1 million a year in energy-efficiency work to opt out of contributing to Efficiency Vermont, a state program funded through a charge on every electric bill, O’Kane said. By running its own efficiency program, IBM would have more flexibility, he said.
“It would, in our view, be much more effective if we could make investments and then get audited,” said O’Kane, government affairs director for IBM.
Let’s leave aside for the moment the laughable notion that the Douglas gang would conduct effective audits of an IBM efficiency program. Anyone see a pattern here? Storm clouds over state’s biggest corporate employer, hints that they may look elsewhere… followed by demands for relief. Do you suppose this will be the last item on IBM’s wish list? Do you think they might use all the bad news as leverage? And, given the Administration’s pro-corporate proclivities, don’t you think IBM will be given pretty much whatever it wants?
One more question for those more knowledgeable than I: If large corporations are allowed to opt out of these payments, what kind of a cut will be forced on the extremely effective but already underfunded EV program?