NEIS: STOP NUCLEAR “TERRORISM” -- OPPOSE THE EXELON NUKE BAILOUT!!

STOP NUCLEAR “TERRORISM” -- OPPOSE THE EXELON NUKE BAILOUT!!

They’re baaaack!!  After a lull in pseudo-negotiations with Illinois environmental groups, Exelon dropped a new piece of nuclear bailout legislation on the legislature on May 4^th.  Titled the “Next Generation Energy Plan,” it is SB.1585.  Introduced BY Exelon while they were in allegedly “good-faith” negotiations with members of the Clean Jobs Coalition (CJC), the bill was introduced without warning.  Exelon claims it to be, “a result of discussions between Exelon Generation, ComEd, the Clean Jobs Coalition, and other key stakeholders,” and “…reflects the best of all three bills introduced by Exelon Generation, ComEd, and the Clean Jobs Coalition in 2015….”  (Source:  “Nuclear Power Matters” e-mail blast to Exelon supporters.).  So much for “good faith negotiations.”  To be clear: the Clean Jobs Coalition and enviro groups did NOT endorse, nor collaborate in the creation of the Exelon bailout bill.

In another “Nuclear Power Matters” e-mail, Exelon threatens, “…if the Next Generation Energy Plan does not pass by May 31 – the end of Illinois’ spring legislative session – the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants will be shut down on June 1, 2017, and June 1, 2018, respectively.” To which NEIS replies:  GREAT!  (except for the workers and the reactor communities that Exelon is holding as “nuclear hostages” with the Illinois Legislators, who in an election year are more concerned about jobs than they are about the environment and sound, long-term energy policy).

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  STOP NUCLEAR TERRORISM**! –

It’s time we call their bluff, and call their behavior for what it is.  It is EXELON that is deciding to shut the reactors and fire the workers and trash the communities if they don’t get their bailout, no one else.  Let THEM take the heat for the consequences.

Contact:

•           Governor Bruce Rauner, (312) 814-2121; also, you can leave a written message on the Governor’s website at:  http://www.illinois.gov/gov/contactus/Pages/VoiceAnOpinion.aspx

•           House Speaker Michael Madigan, (217) 782-5350

•           Senate Pres. John Cullerton, (773) 883-0770

The Message:

•              NO bailouts for Exelon’s aging, money losing reactors

•              Fix the Renewable Portfolio Standard NOW and FIRST

•              Enact a “just transitions” program for reactor communities and displaced workers;

•              Enact strong reactor decommissioning laws, which Illinois currently lacks

•              Add your own message

[NOTE: ** For those who think we exaggerate, one of the three conditions the FBI has set  for defining domestic terrorism states that an act, “Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” Threatened “economic mass destruction” would seem to be a “lite” version of this condition.  “Back in the days” of the Chicago Mob, this kind of thing was simply “extortion,” or, as is more commonly known nowadays, “Making an offer they can’t refuse.” –DK--]

[This action alert was prepared by David Kraft, Executive Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, Illinois' nuclear power watchdog for the past 35 years.]

Critics: New FirstEnergy ‘bailout’ plan ‘would make Houdini blush’

Crews install new LED lighting in the sign at FirstEnergy's Akron headquarters.As reported by Kathiann M. Kowalski at Midwest Energy News, FirstEnergy's hail Mary pass to try to resurrect its billion dollar bailout approved by PUCO but rejected (for now) by FERC has generated fierce push back by critics and opponents.

The article quotes the State of Ohio Consumers' Counsel:

“This continuing saga of the FirstEnergy bailout remains a great risk for Ohioans' electric bills and, nearly two years into the state process, an imposition on government regulation that the public funds,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston. “Enough is enough.‎"

The Electric Power Supply Association is also quoted:

“If anything, this new unprecedented scheme is worse,” said John Shelk, president of the Electric Power Supply Association. “It shows what we have said all along. This isn’t about protecting customers and retail rate stability, but about bailing out shareholders and management in the face of a looming credit downgrade.”

In his opinion, the “escape attempt” from FERC’s order requiring scrutiny of the power purchase agreement “would make even Houdini blush.” (emphasis added)

Environmental groups, including Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, and Earthjustice, also oppose FirstEnergy's bailout attempt.

“FirstEnergy’s latest gambit underscores that its bailout proposal has nothing to do with protecting customers or preserving Ohio generation, and everything to do with propping up corporate profits,” said Shannon Fisk of Earthjustice on behalf of the Sierra Club

“We urge PUCO to reject FirstEnergy’s attempt to evade federal review of an illegal bailout that FirstEnergy acknowledges would cost customers at least $363 million in the first 31 months alone,” Fisk added.

In addition to propping up noncompetitive, 50-year old FirstEnergy coal burners, like Sammis and at OVEC (Ohio Valley Electric Cooperative, including units that historically electrified uranium enrichment facilities in the Ohio River Valley), the $3.9 to more than $5 billion bailout, over eight years, would also go towards propping up the problem-plagued, age-degraded FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo. 

Since 2010, Beyond Nuclear has co-led an environmental coalition opposed to the 20-year (2017-2037) license extension at Davis-Besse. Beyond Nuclear et al.'s objection to high-level radioactive waste generation at Davis-Besse is still before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Toledo attorney Terry Lodge serves as legal counsel for the coalition opposing the license extension. D.C. attorney Diane Curran, and Atlanta attorney Mindy Goldstein, serve as Beyond Nuclear's legal counsel in the Nuclear Waste Confidence appeal; Natural Resource Defense Council's Geoff Fettus presented oral arguments at the D.C. Circuit, on behalf of the environmental coalition, on Feb. 22, 2016.

Absent Legislation, Exelon to Close Clinton, Quad Cities Nukes

As reported by RTO Insider, as well as the Wall Street Journal, Exelon Nuclear has threatened to permanently close its Clinton nuclear power plant by June 1, 2017, and its Quad Cities nuclear power plant a year later, unless the State of Illinois approves a large-scale bailout. Exelon's lobbyists seeks $300 million per year, for several years, amounting to more than $1.5 billion in subsidies. This, to prop up atomic reactors that cannot compete with less expensive sources of electricity, including wind power and energy efficiency.

35-year-old Chicago-based watchdog group Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) has led the resistance to the billion dollar boondoggle, as by holding "Alms for Exelon" street theater parodies, as well as educating state legislators' offices. So far, NEIS has successfully staved off the public subsidies.

Exelon's latest money grab in IL comes after its lobbyists' success at winning a split decision from the Washington, D.C. Public Service Commission, approving its takeover of Mid-Atlantic utility Pepco. Exelon can now be expected to gouge not only D.C. ratepayers, but ratepayers throughout Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic, on their electricity bills, further helping to prop up failing Exelon atomic reactors throughout the country.

Public Citizen and DC Solar have appealed the DC PSC ruling; resistance, as by CCAN (Chesapeake Climate Action Network) and the State of Maryland Attorney General and state ratepayer advocate, also goes on in Maryland.

Exelon has made similar subsidy demands in NY, to prop up failing reactors there, as the RTO Insider article reports.

Any such subsidies would be in addition to hundreds of billions of dollars of public (ratepayer and taxpayer) subsidies the nuclear power industry has already enjoyed, over the past half-century, as reported by Union of Concerned Scientists in 2011.

Crain's Chicago Business: Why the state might raise your power bill

Map by Crain's Chicago BusinessAs reported by Steve Daniels at Crain's Chicago Business, the coal burner Dynegy has joined the atom splitter Exelon is seeking approval from the Illinois State Legislature for a mega-bailout, at ratepayer expense, to prop up dirty, dangerously old, and noncompetitive power plants (see the Crain's Chicago Business map, left, for plant locations in the state).

Ironically, Dynegy has critized such ratepayer-funded subsidies in Ohio. It has opposed efforts by FirstEnergy and American Electric Power to obtain above market rates Power Purchase Agreements from Ohio ratepayers, as in the proceeding before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. FirstEnergy's bailout would prop up both its problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, as well as several coal plants (AEP's bailout would prop up exclusively coal plants).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has put a hold on the PUCO's approval of the FirstEnergy and AEP bailouts. Some analysts see this as the end of the proposals.

Adding to the irony, Exelon Nuclear, as well as Dynegy, offered bids to outcompete FirstEnergy before the PUCO. Exelon said it could provide the same amout of electricity for $2 billion less than FirstEnergy; Dynegy said it could do so for $2.5 billion less than FirstEnergy.

While Exelon Nuclear and Dynegy tout free market competition in electricity in Ohio, they are attempting to do the opposite in Illinois -- seeking state approval for massive ratepayer subsidies, to prop up age-degraded, noncompetitive plants.