nuclear-news

Bonnie Raitt and thousands of others against Florida’s Nuclear Tax scam

“It’s a complete scam that Florida’s big power companies, FPL and Progress Energy, are allowed to charge their customers in advance for extremely costly nuclear reactors that may never even be built — with no refund if they abandon the projects. While their shareholders are guaranteed a nice rate of return, Florida’s families and businesses are forced to shoulder the risk. It’s time the Florida legislature gets rid of that bad, anti-consumer law. What Florida and our country needs to pursue instead is truly safe, clean and affordable energy. I’d love to come back on tour and see a lot more solar power in the Sunshine State.”   Bonnie Raitt

Floridians Take Action Opposing Nuclear Tax Clean Energy Footprints November 9th, 2012   Mandy Hancock  From the Florida Supreme Court to Bonnie Raitt concerts, Florida’s controversial “nuclear tax ” is getting a lot of attention. On October 4th I, along with my SACE colleagues and attorneys, attended the oral arguments for our high-profile challenge of the cost recovery statute before the Florida Supreme Court. The “nuclear tax” refers to bad, anti-consumer state legislation that was passed in 2006 and allows utilities to charge their customers in advance for new nuclear power generation, including proposed new reactors estimated to come online in the early 2020′s, if they are ever even built. A big decision looms as the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) is set to vote on November 26  on whether to approve this year’s utility requests of nearly $300 million more and unfortunately, the PSC staff just recommended  that they should.

Just days after our appearance before the Court, hundreds of students from around the Southeast converged on Tallahassee for Southern Energy Network’s  8th Annual Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference  (SSREC) at Florida’s Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU)……
The workshops pumped people up to take action. Over 200 young people marched to the Florida Supreme Court and adjacent state capitol building and held peaceful rallies. The crowd demanded an end to the nuclear tax and to get dirty money out of politics, in order to “Clean up the Dirty South.”  Florida’s nuclear tax was used as a locally relevant example of the sort of bad policy that can result from too much corporate influence.

The following week, activists with the Florida League of Conservation Voters (FL LCV) in Gainesville, Florida held a press conference  with a few of the city’s former mayors to bring more attention to Progress Energy of Florida’s proposed Levy Co. reactor proposals and the nuclear tax. Francine Robinson, chairwoman of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility with FL LCV, followed up the conference with a compelling opinion  piece in the Gainesville Sun…..

November 10, 2012 - Posted by Christina MacPherson | opposition to nuclear, USA