Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Environment Beebe opposes SWEPCO bill UPDATE
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 11:10 AM
Significant news on House Bill 1895, the legislation by the American Electric Power Company and the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation to put a screeching halt to court review of the regulatory decisions that allowed construction to begin on the Turk coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County.
In response to my request for Gov. Mike Beebe's position on this legislation, spokesman Matt DeCample responded that the governor had been told before the session that there would be an attempt to "legislatively address" some concerns the Public Service Commission brought up about the "dual docket" under which the plant was considered.
Separate hearings were held on the need of SWEPCO (an American Electric Power subsididary) for the additional generating capacity and on the construction itself. The Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court subsequently ruled that environmental concerns hadn't been adequately considered and said that the need and construction hearings should have been held in one proceeding.
DeCample said the PSC chairman indicated the court ruling was a shift in direction and the PSC wanted to address that with legislation aimed at the "long-term." The governor, according to DeCample, said "he would not object."
Ultimately, the PSC itself didn't propose a bill, but the power companies drew one up (apparently with some PSC input, however). And, said DeCample:
"The bill as filed we have problems with. The governor would not support anything that changes the options for judicial review [the pending legislation prohibits judicial review of PSC decisions] and he would not support anything that retroactively impacts the case currently in the courts."
So. This changes the playing field. Beebe has talked to sponsors. He's willing to consider the legislation for future proceedings. For now ....
UPDATE: The governor met with sponsors this afternoon. Changes are expected in the bill tomorrow morning.
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Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
"prohibits judicial review of PSC decisions"!
Who dreamed that crap up? AR Game and Fish (we decide our own Freedom of No Information cuz we have our own tax source) Commission?
PSC is non reviewable is all I need to know to know that is HORRIBLE legislation obviously written by a Whoreable to the PSC legislator.
like
dislike
The fact is the so-called Tea Party or nouvea conservatives are in the back pockets of monopoly corporations.
If they wanted to empower people then call for public election of PSC as surrounding states have. Arkansas pays higher utility rates that 4 surrounding states. But, we have the best politicians monopolies can buy.
How utilities have maintained a death grip over the government-people of Arkansas
for the past 70 years is beyond me.
That's great news--thanks to Governor Beebe for engaging. He's clearly on the right side here. SWEPCO is attempting to retroactively change its loss in the courts and affect questions currently before the courts by changing the law. I'm glad that the Governor sees this for what it is.
SWEPCO has continued building the Turk plant for months and months and months--even after they lost their PSC permit in the Court of Appeals and later in the Arkansas Supreme Court (both unanimous decisions). Their air permit and water permit are also both under appeal, yet the construction continued, to the tune of about a billion dollars spent already.
SWEPCO is pulling out all the stops now--including this attempt to change the rules retroactively--to try and salvage what has been an incredibly risky business strategy (buildling without final permits). If I was a SWEPCO stockholder, I'd be mighty nervous while staring at what may end up being a multi-billion dollar project loss on the books. But bottom line: they were warned at every step along the way that they shouldn't build until all the permits were final. They rolled the dice. We'll see how it turns out.
I too applaud the Gov. for not acceding to the subversion of the Sup. Ct.'s decision. Too bad his PSC commissioners are so lacking in leadership. But as John Pickett recently suggested in his op-ed for the DOG, the PSC has become an industry puppet.
The Gov is trying to save a bad situation from being worse. Legislators are stampeding to do SWEPCO & Cooperative's bidding. The Gov is right that the bill shouldn't apply retroactively apply or shut out the courts. But even with those fixes, it is a bad idea in the future (stupid on its face) to separate the approval of a power plant from the decision on whether it is needed.
These are the most expensive decisions the PSC makes, with 30-year impacts, or more. The process should encourage vigorous intervention & review. If the decision on the need for power is made first, half the decision is already made on the specific plant.
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