An "Award-Winning" Racket!

According to today's OD,

Companies throughout the Mohawk Valley are being rewarded for their positive impact on the local economy.  

(Don't 'cha love the positive spin the OD puts on things? You would think that the "MoVa" was positively booming!)

ReCharge NY, a program through the state Power Authority, awards low-cost power to state businesses and nonprofit organizations.

(In other words, this program "awards" special deals for special businesses . . . needed because NY State policies have required that cheap-to-produce Upstate-created hydropower must subsidize NYC-metro area electric rates . . . an area that insisted on closing one power facility just before it was turned on (the Shoreham, LI nuke plant), is insisting on closing another (the Indian Point nuke plant) and is closing down a myriad of fossil-fuel based plants.)

Some of this year’s big recipients include Revere Copper Products in Rome (6,600 kilowatts), Special Metals Corp. in New Hartford (4,900 kilowatts) and GUSC Energy in Rome (6,730 kilowatts).

GUSC should catch your eye.  GUSC Energy "is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Griffiss Utility Services Corporation (GUSC)." "Griffiss Utility Services Corporation (GUSC) distributes steam heat and electricity to the tenants of Griffiss Business and Technology Park in Rome, New York."

So GUSC Energy and GUSC (the parent corp.) are really "middlemen" in getting electricity from the producer to the end users, the captive tenants of the Griffiss Business and Technology Park, that the other recipients of ReCharge NY's largess do not have to go through.  GUSC Energy and GUSC are part of the "alphabet soup" of Mohawk Valley EDGE-related corporations operating with 'complete transparency' (an attempt at humor here) up at the "International" airport . . . and people running these 'middleman' organizations are obviously being paid.  

Have you heard people raving about the good deal they get on utilities at Griffiss Park?  I didn't think so.

Only in the Mohawk Valley would forcing people to go through a middleman to purchase their electricity be considered a "positive impact on the local economy."