Senator Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) issued the following statement regarding the death of Assembly Bill 25, the Right of First Refusal Bill (ROFR) and the introduction of the Wisconsin Energy Reform Act, the new ROFR legislation:
“The ability of politicians to rationalize deception and deceit to fool the public is on full display this week in the Wisconsin State Capitol. ROFR, as embodied in AB 25, was declared dead by some of my colleagues even though they knew such a statement to be false, since the ROFR language was being transferred to a new piece of legislation.
The new ROFR bill, deceptively named by its supporters, is called the Wisconsin Energy Reform Act (LRB-2777/1). WERA contains several small energy related policy provisions, to hide the real meat of the proposal, the supposedly dead ROFR language.
These small policy items provide limited benefit to the public, but inside the Capitol provide political cover for some legislators to flip their positions of fighting for their constituents and instead deliver for the powerful utility special interests.
Once again, the truth has become the enemy of many of my colleagues that simply have no problem increasing the costs of energy to maximize profits for the utility monopoly in this state.
I will stand with the electric ratepayers of this state and continue to oppose ROFR.”
