"Utility Back Bills Residents"

Do you think they could find it in their heart to eat this one? What an incredible PR opportunity it would be. The headline and story could instead be along the lines of "After long expensive winter, utility will absorb costs". Heck, even Hugo Chavez understands a good energy PR opportunity:

From the JSOnline:

Utility back-bills residents

We Energies seeks money lost due to broken meters

At least 21,000 We Energies customers are getting hit with unexpected bills totaling about $3 million after broken meters failed to accurately report natural gas usage this winter.

We Energies is back-billing customers by estimating their gas usage. The utility is allowed to do this under state law, but some customers complain that the company is taking advantage of them and charging too much for the utility's own mistake.

"I don't know where they are coming up with these numbers," said Angela Lucchesi, who received a $600 bill from the utility in April for billing mistakes made since January. "The equipment is not working, so I have to pay for it?"

Lucchesi lives in a duplex in Milwaukee, where one of the meters went on the fritz this winter after extreme swings in temperature caused problems with automated meter reading technology.

Read the rest online. I know many single mothers who are struggling - I mean really struggling - against a big utility who threatens them with dump payments of "$750 or else well turn it off". And that's before this latest news to arbitrarily charge people what they think they should pay.

Where is Barack Obama when we need him? THIS is something that is actually "Unfair" and "Big Energy".