JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi Power customers, the fate of your Power Bill hangs in the balance. Monday, the Mississippi Sierra Club, a grassroots environmental organization, challenged the electric company to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
 
Last week Mississippi Power had a 21 percent rate increase approved by the Mississippi Public Service Commission. Louie Miller, president of the Sierra Club, believes the company was trying to preempt the Supreme Court.
 
“They violated the administrative procedures act, they violated their own rules of procedure,” said Miller. “They are by law supposed to give ten days under their own, and under the act a 20 days notice under the act. They gave less than 24 hours notice.”
 
In the hearing they argued the constitutionally of the Baseload Act which was passed in 2008 by the Mississippi Legislature.
 
“It passed because of the insistence of Mississippi Power and Entergy hiring every lobbyist in the building, which some call the full employment act for lobbyist, which changed 75 years of case law.”
 
Before the Baseload Act was passed you did not pay for a power plant until they flipped the switch and started producing electricity.
 
“This scheme made it so companies could charge customers in advance, even if it didn’t produce one kilowatt of electricity.”

Mississippi Power's Kemper Coal Plant now has a price tag of over 2.8 billion dollars and has not produced any electricity.