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Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), Denver

Concerned members website: http://www.ireavoices.org/

Background:

• By the 1980’s IREA had become a huge corporation perceived by many members as insulated and nonresponsive. It was alleged to be losing money, paying huge salaries to executives, had nearly doubled electric rates in one year, was giving lucrative “pro-growth” concessions to developers, had audit trouble, and had amended its by-laws to strip members of governance rights.
• Between 1984 and 1986 eleven lawsuits and counter lawsuits were filed: by the IREA against minority board members, customers, and state regulatory officials; by customers and employees against the IREA.
• In 1984 a group of dissatisfied customers calling themselves “Concerned Members of IREA” organized a petition drive to recall the board of directors and elect new leaders. They filed ample petitions (over 4,000 signatures) but the directors rejected the petitions “due to lack of cause for recall.”
• Concerned Members filed two court appeals, seeking nonmonetary rulings on whether the law required an election and public board meetings.
• IREA’s management filed a SLAPP counterclaim demanding $1,200,000 from Concerned Members and six of its individual leaders for abuse of process (filing the election suit) and libel (the violations of law alleged in the complaint).
• One of the country’s mega-law firms, Kirkland and Ellis, volunteered to represent Concerned Members pro-bono. Things went poorly for them in the Trial Court (not unusual), so their attorneys made a successful appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. IREA dragged the litigation on for two years by appeals and finally a gag-order settlement was reached.

Results:

• Board meetings became public, but the same insiders retained control. Management passed on litigation costs to members.

More background:

• August, 2006 - IREA distributed a nine page letter to approximately 900 fellow members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association that described IREAs launch of a campaign to combat global warming “alarmists”. IREA contributed $100,000 to Dr. Patrick Michaels of New Hope Environmental Services, Inc. A quick review of past newsletters from the World Climate Report, whose chief editor is Dr. Michaels, reveals that Dr. Michaels has long been a leading skeptic of global warming. Unlike the vast majority of climate scientists today, Dr. Michaels disputes the fact that human activity (in the form of burning fossil fuels) is the leading cause of the spike in concentrations of CO2, the resulting increase in global temperature, and its consequences.
• Jake Meffley, an Energy Advocate for Environment Colorado says, “The real issue here is not global warming, its cause, and our collective responsibility for the generation of greenhouse gases. That is a debate (if there is one) best left for qualified climate scientists. The issue deserving our attention is IREA’s contribution of a huge sum of money last February to such a questionable source with virtually no input from its members”, Meffley concluded.
• Coop funds are not profits that can be spent as management dictates as in the for-profit business world. Excess money in the hands of the coop belongs to its member customers and can be returned in the form of capital credits.
• A quote from IREA’s general manager appearing August 2, 2006 in the Rocky Mountain News, “We’re a $300 million-a-year corporation. We’re not going to our members and ask them individually about every decision we make.” While no one expected an individual consultation from IREA management or it’s Board of Directors, they could have held public meetings, used the monthly newsletter to elicit responses, or utilized their web site to obtain input.
• “It’s outrageous. It’s an abuse of authority,” said Ron Binz, a public utility consultant who was Colorado’s state utility consumer advocate from 1984 to 1995. “Intermountain is a rural electric cooperative,” Binz said. “The customers are member-owners. Stan Lewandowski (general manager) is basically spending other people’s money.”

Source:

http://www.environmentcolorado.org/news-releases/global-warming/global-warming-news/intermountain-rural-electric-association-gives-100000-to-global-warming-skeptic

Colorado

Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) http://www.ireavoices.org

Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association http://pvpioneers.org

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