“I’m an individual citizen asking the commission to please represent the public and get this rich, highly profitable, private corporation’s sticky fingers out of my pockets!” pleaded public witness Robert Searfoss.
Mr. Searfoss was the first of many public witnesses seeking relief at the recent Georgia Public Service Commission hearing about who is to pay for an additional $2.2 billion in cost overruns Georgia Power has incurred attempting to construct two reactors at Plant Vogtle.
Up for a vote five days before Christmas is an unprecedented agreement between the PSC staff, which advises the PSC, and Georgia Power which is regulated by the PSC.
The $2.2 billion in cost overruns are Georgia Power’s share following lengthy litigation with the building contractor and reactor designer.
In the agreement between PSC staff and Georgia Power, $2.2 billion of cost overruns (to date) is recommended to be passed on to Georgia electricity customers in their bills starting in 2017.
Vogtle’s nuclear reactors Nos. 3 and 4 are already at the center of a storm of controversy because they are more than three years behind schedule, $2 billion over budget and only 36 percent complete.
The PSC was established in 1922 by the Georgia legislature, which recognized the need to protect the public’s interests against the Georgia Power Co.’s monopoly. In addition to electricity, the PSC regulates rail, telephone and gas. The PSC has significant legal authority over the monopolies it regulates, including the power to cancel construction projects that are no longer needed.
The five commissioners are elected to six-year terms in statewide elections. The current commissioners are all men, all Republican, all white and all Christians. They are also all avowedly pro-nuclear. They open each session with a prayer.
Mr. Searfoss took a vacation day from his job and rode MARTA to the hearing. He asked commissioners to hold hearings throughout the state as the issue is “too intricate and too important for one hearing in Atlanta.”
For many years, experts have testified before the PSC, using Georgia Power annual report data, that Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors are not even needed.
Georgia Power’s annual report numbers show it is already overbuilt, with 35 percent unused reserve capacity, even after recently shuttering 3,000 megawatts of dirty coal power.
According to Georgia Power’s figures the forecasted growth in electricity and for which Vogtle 3 and 4 construction was permitted, has simply not happened.
Georgia Power’s population growth estimates, however, were more accurate. Even with a million new customers, Georgia is consuming 1 percent less electricity than 10 years ago. We are doing something right!
Georgia Power is posting record high profits, however, up over 20 percent, despite the 10-year sales slump and the huge, mismanaged Vogtle construction project.
This way-out-of-whack situation can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the five current commissioners. And they are the only ones who have the power to put the situation to rights.
Mr. Searfoss wrapped up his three allotted minutes, saying, “I’m requesting the commission please represent the general public of Georgia and get the company’s fat fingers out of other people’s pockets — my pockets. Make them pay for their own overruns.
“After all this is not the Georgia Power Service Commission — it is the Public Service Commission.”
To whom will the PSC stick the bill for two unneeded nuclear reactors in Georgia?
Members of the public still have time to submit their information and opinions about the cost overruns to the commissioners. Find out how on the PSC website, www.psc.state.ga.us.
And on Tuesday, perhaps Georgians will witness a Christmas miracle.
Glenn Carroll is coordinator of Nuclear Watch South, a public interest environmental organization headquartered in Atlanta. Contact her at P.O. Box 8574, Atlanta, GA 31106, atom.girl@nonukesyall.org, www.nonukesyall.org.