Author Archives: Glenn

Georgia Watch challenges Plant Vogtle decision

by J. Scott Truby
ATLANTA 3/8/18: Consumer group Georgia Watch filed a legal challenge to the December decision by the Georgia Public Service Commission to allow Georgia Power and partners to complete two unfinished nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in east Georgia.

In a petition filed in Fulton County Superior Court, Georgia Watch alleges the unanimous decision by the utilities regulator benefits shareholders of Georgia Power, a subsidiary of publicly traded Southern Company, over Georgia ratepayers.

The decision was finalized in January.

The challenge is at least the second filed against the PSC by consumer groups in recent weeks. A trio of advocacy groups challenged the PSC’s decision on Georgia Power’s new cost estimates, alleging commissioners violated state laws and the commission’s own rules approving spending that would nearly double the estimated costs of the project.

Georgia Watch alleges commissioners violated the law by “[communicating] with Georgia Power behind closed doors in the days leading up to the final decision without notifying other parties or giving them an opportunity to respond to the substance of the communications.”

“The Commission’s decision puts nearly all of the higher cost burden and risks of further cost increases on the backs of Georgia consumers,” Georgia Watch Executive Director Liz Coyle said in a news release. “Incredibly, Georgia Power will actually earn billions in extra profit while their customers foot the bill for the mismanaged project.”

The law group of former Gov. Roy Barnes is representing Georgia Watch on a pro bono basis.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal & Constitution

The $29 billion boondoggle that’s poisoning Black communities

by Gloria Tatum
SHELL BLUFF 3/6/18: As members of Congress clamored last month to pass a spending bill and avoid a second federal government shutdown, much of the public dialogue revolved more around the standoff between Republicans and Democrats than the contents of the bill.

But for residents of Shell Bluff, a majority-Black, rural community on Georgia’s eastern border, the outcomes are clear. And they’re dire. Among the bill’s many provisions is a measure to extend a tax credit program that was previously set to expire. The program will allocate $800 million to prop up a nuclear power boondoggle that has been plaguing Shell Bluff and the surrounding area for years.

Situated in Burke County on the Savannah River, which forms the Georgia-South Carolina border, Shell Bluff is home to the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, commonly known as Plant Vogtle. Owned largely by Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, Plant Vogtle has supplied the state with electricity generated by two nuclear reactors since the 1980s.

In 2009, Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) approved plans to construct two additional reactors at the plant, and allowed Georgia Power to charge ratepayers up front for the construction cost. In so doing, the PSC ignored devastating health and environmental effects the nuclear plant had wrought. In the years following, the PSC would also turn a blind eye to massive cost overruns and construction delays, greenlighting the project to continue in spite of numerous red flags.

Read the whole article: Scalawag

Effort to end financing law gains steam in Ga.

by Kristi Swartz
ATLANTA 2/27/18 — A bill that would end the controversial financing law that’s being used to expand Plant Vogtle passed the Georgia Senate yesterday.

The measure would apply only to future nuclear reactors and would not affect Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle expansion project. Still, while the proposal (S.B. 355) does no immediate financial harm to Georgia Power, a unit of energy giant Southern Co., it carries major political significance.

Georgia Power is a political heavyweight at the state Capitol. The utility had roughly six dozen lobbyists help move the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act through the Legislature in 2009, allowing the electric company to bill customers for Vogtle’s reactors as they were being built.

At the time, Georgia Power and nuclear supporters argued that doing so would pay down interest costs and save customers money over time. It would also send a signal to Wall Street that the Peach State stood behind Georgia Power building the nation’s first nuclear project from scratch in nearly 30 years.

Vogtle is now the lone nuclear project under construction in the U.S. It is years behind schedule and billions above its forecast budget. The financing costs have now roughly doubled, causing many to question whether the Legislature needed to review the 2009 law.

“If you had asked me at the beginning of the session if any legislation would move in this area, I’d say, ‘Absolutely not,’” said state Sen. Josh McKoon, a Republican from Columbus. “It’s one thing to stir up a hornet’s nest. It’s another to constructively engage Georgia Power, the other players, to come up with something that moves public policy in a direction that [the bill's sponsor] and I think it should be moving in.”

Read the whole article: E&E News

Utility lending bill runs into opposition

by Jill Nolan
DALTON 2/23/18: A proposal to let local governments borrow money for electric utility projects without a public vote has run into resistance at the state Capitol.

The statewide bill is essentially tailored for Dalton Utilities, which owns 1.6 percent of the costly Plant Vogtle expansion project. The utility wants state lawmakers to eliminate a public referendum that is currently required before they can issue bonds for electric system-related projects.

Dalton Utilities’ chief executive officer, Tom Bundros, told lawmakers Friday that the utility does not need to borrow money to cover its share of the cost to finish two new nuclear reactors at Vogtle near Waynesboro. That project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

Bundros said the utility’s share, which is expected to run another $80 million, would come from “internally generated cash flow.” He also said the utility does not anticipate the need to borrow money for the next five years.

“Well, if you don’t want to borrow any more money, why do you need this?” said Rep. Penny Houston, R-Nashville.

Read the whole article: Daily Citizen-News

Ga. panel votes to scrap project financing law with Vogtle carve-out

by Kristi Swartz
ATLANTA 2/16/18 — A Georgia Senate panel swiftly passed a bill that ends a controversial financing law for nuclear power plants but leaves Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle expansion project alone.

The measure is a pared-down version of a bill (S.B. 355) that would limit how much Georgia Power could profit from Vogtle, whose reactors are years behind schedule and billions of dollars above their original forecast budget. Georgia Power — known for its political muscle at the Capitol — did not oppose the new version passed yesterday.

Consumer advocates also did not testify but said after the meeting they hoped this measure would open the door for future inquiries by the Legislature.

“We remain hopeful that the Legislature will continue to look at the issues, and as they dig deeper, they will realize that we need to do something more,” Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch, said in an interview after yesterday’s Georgia Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee hearing. “At least we can say that something has gotten done where the Legislature is acknowledging that we can’t just keep this going unchecked.”

Read the whole article: E&E News

Bill limiting Georgia Power profits would not apply to Vogtle delays

by Anastaciah Ondieki
ATLANTA 2/16/18: A newly proposed Senate Bill that would have limited charges on Georgia Power customer bills for the Vogtle nuclear expansion project has been amended, to apply only to future nuclear projects.

The amended version of Senate Bill 355, which received unanimous support from members of the Regulated Industries and Utilities committee Thursday, will target projects commissioned after January 1, 2018.

The bill, introduced by Rome Republican lawmaker Chuck Hufstetler also requires Georgia Power and other utility companies to seek prior authorization from Congress before pursuing new nuclear projects.

Hufstetler said Vogtle was not included in the bill as there would be no support to see it through the legislature.

He however said his decision to seek consumer protections for ratepayers stems from recent efforts by Georgia Power to seek a location for a new nuclear site in Stewart County.

The bill is now headed to the Senate Rules Committee.

“At least we can say something has gotten done with the legislators acknowledging we can’t let this keep going unchecked,” said Liz Coyle, the Executive Director of Georgia Watch.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Lawsuit, Investigation Request Keep PSC, Georgia Power on their Toes

by Gloria Tatum
(APN) ATLANTA 2/15/18 — The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is facing a new lawsuit, while Georgia Power is facing a possible investigation – both in connection with challenges to the continued construction of new nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle.

Three groups–the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), Partnership for Southern Equity, and Georgia Interfaith Power and Light–have filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday, February 12, 2018 against the PSC.

The Petitioners claim the PSC’s December 21, 2017 decision and holiday gift to Georgia Power to continue Vogtle 3 and 4 violated Georgia law and the PSC’s own governing rules, making their decision illegal.

The PSC’s decision ensures Georgia Power Company billions of dollars in additional profits, while saddling ratepayers with billions in additional expenses.

The Commission’s decision put the interest of Georgia Power’s shareholders ahead of the interest of ratepayers, especially low-income customers.

Finally, there is a lawsuit that asserts the obvious – that the so-called “Public Service” Commission is and has been working as an agent of Georgia Power for years instead of protecting the ratepayers.

As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, the PSC vote overruled its own staff’s recommendations, which stated that to go forward would hurt ratepayers financially and reward Georgia Power’s bad management with additional profits.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

As Georgia regulators ponder Vogtle’s future, more revelations emerge about its doomed twin in South Carolina

by Tom Baxter
11/13/17 ATLANTA: From a design point of view, the nuclear projects at Plant Vogtle and the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina were identical. They were to be the first in a new generation of U.S. nuclear reactors, the Westinghouse AP1000s, cheaper, easier to build and safer than their predecessors.

After years of costly delays, the fate of the two projects diverged last summer, when the South Carolina utilities funding the Summer project pulled the plug on it, just days after the Georgia Public Service gave the go-ahead for continuing construction at Vogtle, despite the bankruptcy of Westinghouse.

The impact of the Westinghouse debacle has been felt more sharply in South Carolina, where a substantially smaller population of ratepayers is shouldering the enormous costs. One result of this has been a very productive competition between Columbia’s The State and Charleston’s The Post and Courier, both of which have been aggressive in reporting on the regulatory failures that accompanied the engineering blunders on the road to ruin for the Summer project.

Last week, as the Georgia Public Service Commission was holding four days of hearings on the future of the Vogtle project, portable devices were buzzing with the fruits of that effort.

Read the whole article: Saporta Report

Opinion: An answer for Ga. Power

by Jay Bookman
11/13/17 ATLANTA: More than a decade ago, our good friends at Georgia Power conceived the idea of building two new nuclear reactors — the first to be built on U.S. soil in a generation — at its Vogtle site outside Augusta.

Georgia Power recruited the partners it needed from electric co-ops and city utilities around the state. It convinced its obedient servants at the state Public Service Commission to rubber-stamp the project, which they did by a 4-1 vote. (All four “yes” men are still on the PSC today, still collecting their six-figure salaries, their durability testament to the wisdom of not crossing Georgia Power.)

The company hired the most powerful lobbyists in the state to supplement its own standing army of lobbyists, then strong-armed a law through a compliant state Legislature that forced consumers to start paying for the nuke projects immediately, long before they produced any power. Getting the signature of then-Gov. Sonny Perdue on that bill also proved to be no problem, since the man whom Perdue had hired as his chief of staff happened to have been Georgia Power’s top lobbyist for decades.

Georgia Power chose the design. Georgia Power hired the contractors. Georgia Power assured everyone who would listen that the problems that had long dogged nuclear power — the safety concerns, the massive cost-overruns and construction delays — had been resolved, and that the units would be up and producing power by 2017 just as scheduled. Critics who noted the difficulty and risk of trying to restart a complicated, zero-defect industry from scratch were steamrollered.

The message from the company was steadfast: “Don’t worry, we got this.”

Well no, they didn’t. They were wrong, spectacularly wrong, and their critics have been proved right. Under the original schedule, both new nuclear units should have been producing power by now. Instead, they are less than half built. The cost overruns have been enormous, basically doubling in cost even if nothing further goes wrong. And what is the price to be paid for such failure?

For Georgia Power, the price is none. No price, and to hear Georgia Power tell it, no failure. In a meeting last week with reporters from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers was asked whether the company deserved any blame or responsibility for imposing this financial catastrophe on the people of Georgia.

“The answer to that question is no,” Bowers said.

No? The answer to that question is no?

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

CEO of Georgia powerhouse skips the whole apology thing

by Matt Kempner
11/8/17 ATLANTA: If you made a giant mess that your neighbors were going to end up paying for, would you take a moment to apologize to them? Perhaps at least mumble something about “regret”?

Georgia Power’s CEO did not utter such words the other day. Not even close.

CEO Paul Bowers made a rare personal appearance at a hearing before the Georgia Public Service Commission this week. He was there to explain why state regulators should continue the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project and force the company’s customers — his neighbors — to take on way more risk and billions in additional costs because the project has careened off the rails.

“We understand that this is a complex and difficult decision,” Bowers told the elected body.
The project was supposed to be producing electricity before now. Instead, after years of busted assurances and forecasts, Georgia Power’s latest estimate is for completion in another five years.

Maybe. Because now it’s also warning that there’s a whole lot that still could go wrong to screw up its latest projection. So, don’t hold Georgia Power accountable to that timetable.

Bowers didn’t hint at any remorse during what apparently was his only appearance in a Georgia PSC hearing since getting Georgia Power’s top job almost seven years ago. As Sir Elton sang: “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.”

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Repeal Georgia Nuclear Tax