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 The Short History of Co-op Conversations USA
Co-opConversationsUSA is a tool within a very well stocked tool box that is building a national movement to bring progressive reform to electric cooperatives across the USA. The history behind this movement is relatively short but sweet, and like a lot of citizen lead efforts the very first action may never be officially known, but when I tell the story, I start in Texas.
A few years back, members of one of the largest co-ops in the country started asking questions of their co-op, Pedernales Electric Cooperative. It kind of started with Ric Sternberg wanting to put up solar panels, he started asking easy questions but the answers just made him need to ask more questions. And the more questions he asked, the more it became obvious something was not quite right.
In early 2009 other co-op conversations broke out in some strategic coverage areas. In Georgia, at the Cobb EMC (electric membership corporation) where members had been pushing back for a few years, the authorities actually had to break into co-op board members homes to seize hidden evidence.http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/05/coal-powered-corruption-in-georgia.html
In Michigan, coal was at the root of a member led effort to get financial disclosure of what the new plant would actually cost and the effect on future rates. Co-opConversations.org was the organizing force that activated a wide ranging public education campaign and effort to pass resolutions at the Cherryland Electric Cooperative’s annual meeting in the spring.
It seemed as though the questionable rush to build new coal plants got many co-op members up in arms in 2008-09, but there were also issues like an herbicide spraying policy in Arkansas that led neighbors of Shawn Porter to start asking for more respect from their own Carrol Electric Cooperative.
Many individual actions were happening independently. The opportunity to seize this energetic momentum and create a national cooperative coalition was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. We planned the first national conference on publicly owned power company reform in Washington D.C. in late July 2009. Over 50 co-op member activists, co-op board members, industry representatives, and grassroots organizers spent three days charting out the need and the strategy for a new organization to lead both municipally owned and member owned utilities toward more progressive policies and sustainable energy decisions.
This is where Co-opConversationsUSA got its start, the rest is history, please come and be part of it.
This is your story: Click here to submit New and Information about you cooperative
Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper lays out some history at the start his report that is available by clicking here. And below is the text from the IRS Code that sanctions cooperative business operations under the 501(C)(12) designation. Now the IRS can be a pretty dry read, but we feel that the time invested here, in understanding the historical roots of your cooperative is worthwhile (Click here to read this story).
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The IRS Code Relating to the Establishment of Energy Cooperatives
Internal Revenue Code. 501(c)(12) provides federal income tax exemption for ... mutual or cooperative telephone companies, electric companies, or “like organizations”. The Service has never distinguished the terms “mutual” or “cooperative” for purposes of I.R.C. 501(c)(12). The purpose of an I.R.C. 501(c)(12) organization is to provide certain services to its members at the lowest possible cost. To qualify for and maintain exemption under I.R.C. 501(c)(12), a cooperative must receive 85 percent or more of its income each year from members.
The cooperative form of organization originated in England in the early 1800’s to improve the economic lot of workers and farmers, two groups that suffered during the industrial revolution. Workers, with little bargaining power, suffered low wages. Farmers operated in an especially precarious economic environment, paying retail prices for their raw materials, but selling their output wholesale in markets that fluctuated widely and unpredictably. To gain economic power, workers and farmers organized and pooled resources to form sufficient capital to control the means of production, obtain supplies and services, or market their goods or services.
Congress recognized the contributions and importance of cooperatives even before ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution authorized the income tax. Congress provided exemption from federal excise taxes to cooperative companies, notfor profit mutual benefit associations, and agricultural, horticultural, and domestic building and loan associations.
Read the rest of this fascinating story: Click Here
This is your story: Click here to submit New and Information about you cooperative
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