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<tr><td><b>Comment Number: </b></td><td>533254-00013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Received: </b></td><td>1/15/2008 4:15:57 AM</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Organization: </b></td><td></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Commenter: </b></td><td>Snyder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>State: </b></td><td>MI</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Agency: </b></td><td>Federal Trade Commission</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rule: </b></td><td>Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims; Carbon Offsets and Renewable Energy Certificates</td></tr>

<tr><td>No Attachments</tr></Table>

<hr><P><b>Comments:</b></p>In my state of Michigan, at least one utility is marketing their green power program in such a way as to make its customers think they are buying renewable energy, when all they are really buying is the renewable energy credits that the utility needs to buy anyways to compensate for their dirty fossil fuel and nuclear sourced power. 


I think this deception is particularly cruel, as people think they are supporting renewable energy in Michigan, but most of the RE projects that the RECs come from are actually in other states. Also, the money that folks are contributing for green power is actually enabling the utility to comply with legislation without effectively changing their dirty power generation habits - its is effectively paying the utility's penalty for dirty power production. 


This same utility has effectively suppressed renewable energy projects in MI by delaying the roll-out of state mandated interconnection and net-metering procedures, and by making them so onerous to comply with that even engineers who were former long-term employees specializing in RE can't succeed in getting a system through the net-metering approval process. 


And all this obstructionism isn't even against true net-metering, since the main 2 utilities were successful in obstructing the passage of true net-metering and ensuring their rights to charge customers with RE transmission and distribution costs for power both going to and coming from the grid. One of the T and D costs listed on my most recent utility bill in fine print is for decommissioning nuclear power plants - explain to me how my RE system could possibly incur costs for decommissioning nukes.


I want these utilities to have to practice truth in advertising, and I want them regulated so they can't single-handedly squash renewable energy in Michigan! The planet can't wait for them to come around to doing the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts - by that time there won't be an iceberg left, and island nations will have disappeared under the waves for good.</body></html>