nuclear-news

Duke Energy customers already are on the hook for $1.5 billion for a proposed plant in Levy County that the utility has delayed for almost a decade and still has not committed to build. The utility gets to pocket about $150 million of that money.

The lawmakers also are proposing a reduction in the amount the utilities can earn from the money they collect through the nuclear advance fee. Under the proposal, the utilities would refund any money they earn from the fee if they never build the plants. “What we can’t continue is spending billions of dollars on rate of return and even profits without results,” Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-New Port Richey, one of the bill’s sponsors, said during a press conference Thursday.

Other area lawmakers say the senate proposal does not go far enough.

Rep. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, and Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, R-Tallahassee, are sponsoring a House bill to repeal the law altogether.

Fasano said the law has cost customers far too much money, though Duke, through its subsidiary Progress Energy Florida, “has no intention of building nuclear power plants.”

“I do appreciate these senators stepping up to the plate in some form or fashion,” Fasano said. “If we can get something done, I would be pleased. Satisfied to me would be the complete repeal of the law.”

Lawmakers in 2006 passed the legislation as a way to hasten construction of new nuclear plants. ….

The law included no penalties should the utilities mess up. No benchmarks. No caps on spending. No caps on how much a utility could pocket if a project failed. And no deadlines.

“There were no provisions to look out for the consumers,” said Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, one of the Senate bill’s sponsors. “It has no accountability. It’s an open-ended checkbook.”

Legg said the Senate bill will be filed next week……. http://www.tampabay.com/news/state-senators-to-utilities-build-nuclear-power-or-risk-loss-of-funding/1276080