Letter to the Editor: Nuclear bill has safeties
Editor:
After reading the story on the Business Journal website April 6 (“Nuclear plant bill passes Senate committee”) quoting “some consumer advocates” as criticizing SCS SB 48 for inadequate consumer protections, I wanted to ensure that correct information is getting out about this bill. As a former chairman of the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC), and a past-president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), I believe that SCS SB 48 strongly protects consumer interests.
The bill clearly provides the three key consumer protections argued for by the Fair Energy Rate Action Fund (FERAF), in spite of inexplicable claims to the contrary in the Business Journal story. First, it provides for assessment funding of the Office of the Public Counsel. Second, it sets a hard cap on cost recovery. Third, customers will receive a credit (“claw-back”) of any amounts paid, plus interest and a sharing of profits, if any, if the company sells or transfers any part of its interest in the early site permit or is reimbursed from another source, or if any costs are disallowed as imprudent by the PSC. Objectively, SCS SB 48 meets FERAF’s oft-stated criteria.
The statement in the Business Journal article that this bill “repeals part of a consumer protection law that saved Missouri ratepayers nearly $400 million after the completion of Ameren’s first Callaway nuclear reactor” is simply wrong. Proposition A, the “anti-CWIP” statute enacted in 1976, had nothing to do with the $384 million of Callaway I prudence disallowances made by the PSC in 1985, while I was chairman. The commission has always had the authority to exclude imprudent and unreasonable costs from rates. What Proposition A did was delay cost recovery by Union Electric of even the prudent costs of the plant until after construction was finished and the plant was operating. In the end, Proposition A added $1 billion of costs (33.3 percent) to the cost of Callaway I, which we are still paying for. It made Callaway a $3 billion power plant instead of a $2 billion plant. The $384 million imprudence disallowance would have come off the customer’s bill either way. SCS SB 48 does not even come close to overturning Proposition A. It merely creates a limited exception.
William Steinmeier, attorney and government consultant based in Jefferson City
