Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle, July 2020 Photo credit: Georgia Power Co.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s utility regulating agency voted unanimously Tuesday to approve $674 million in spending on the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion Georgia Power Co. reported incurring during the last half of 2019.
But the state Public Service Commission rejected a PSC staff recommendation to start discussing how much of the project’s cost the utility’s customers will be forced to absorb when the first of two new reactors under construction at the site south of Augusta goes into operation late next year.
The PSC has been signing off on Georgia Power’s spending on the $25 billion project in six-month increments since the agency approved the nuclear expansion in 2009.
Following a series of delays that set the work back five years and drove up the price tag from an original estimate of $14 billion, the commission voted in 2017 to hold off any decisions on whether the cost overruns were “prudent” and, thus, could be passed on to customers, until after the new reactors are finished.
But the project’s critics, including consumer and environmental advocacy groups, have been pushing the PSC to take up the impact on customers sooner.
On Tuesday, the commission’s Advisory Staff recommended the PSC start considering the issue when Georgia Power presents its next semiannual Vogtle Construction Monitoring (VCM) report, due by the end of this month.
But Commissioner Tricia Pridemore argued now is too soon to start discussing the project’s ultimate impact on customer bills. She proposed an amendment to the staff’s recommendation to limit Tuesday’s vote to approving the $674 million in spending from the last six months of last year.
“It’s premature to talk about rates and ratemaking,” she said. “We’re 14 months out from [the] Unit 3 [reactor] coming on line.”
Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald sided with the PSC staff’s recommendation to begin considering the cost issue sooner rather than later.
“I don’t think any time is too early for us to start looking at what to expect when Unit 3 comes on line,” he said. “I don’t like surprises.”
But the rest of the commission sided with Pridemore and adopted her amendment by a 4-1 vote. The PSC then unanimously approved the $674 million in spending reported by Georgia Power,
The company maintains the project can be completed under the current timetable, with Unit 3 going into service in November 2021 and Unit 4 the following November. The two new reactors then would join two reactors built at Vogtle during the 1980s.
But independent experts retained as consultants by the PSC’s staff testified earlier this summer the schedule is likely to slip further behind and that the final cost probably will go up by at least $1 billion.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are in a close battle for president in Georgia, according to a new poll.
ATLANTA – President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are in a tight race for Georgia’s 16 electoral votes, according to a poll released Monday by WSB-TV.
The survey of 500 likely Georgia voters conducted Aug. 14-15 by Landmark Communications found Republican Trump the favorite of 47.4%, followed closely by Biden with 44.5%. Libertarian Jo Jorgensen trailed far behind with 4.4% of the vote, and 3.7% said they were undecided.
The poll’s margin of error was 4.4%.
The survey mirrored results in other recent polls of Peach State voters, encouraging Democrats who haven’t carried Georgia in a presidential election since 1992. Trump carried Georgia four years ago, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton by just more than 5%.
The Landmark poll found voters polarized along racial and gender lines. White voters heavily preferred Trump by 68.3% to 24.4%, while Black voters overwhelmingly chose Biden 85.7% to 4.5%.
The margins were less pronounced when considering gender. Trump led among men 52.0% to 36.5%. Biden led among women 51.3% to 43.6%.
Trump and Biden showed a nearly equal ability to attract loyalty from within their own parties. The president drew support from 84.4% of self-identified Republicans, while 84.5% of Democrats supported Biden.
The poll came as the parties prepared to conduct their national conventions virtually for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Democratic National Convention will run from Monday through Thursday, with the Republican National Convention to follow for four days next week.
ATLANTA – A new public-private partnership will lead efforts to make Georgia the technology capital of the East Coast, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan announced Monday.
The Partnership for Inclusive Innovation stems from the work of a task force of political, business and academic leaders Duncan formed last January. The Georgia Innovates Task Force released its recommendations last month.
While Atlanta already has the critical infrastructure in place to become a leader in technology, the new partnership will look to establish tech startups and generate venture capital investment across the state, Duncan told members of the Rotary Club of Atlanta Monday during a virtual luncheon meeting.
“For a long time, Atlanta has gained traction in becoming a technology hub,” Duncan said. “[But] so many other areas can join in this.”
Raphael Bostic, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, served on the Georgia Innovates Task Force and appeared with the lieutenant governor during Monday’s program.
“I was overwhelmed with the depth and breadth of the ideas that came from people all over the state,” Bostic said.
The task force report included recommendations of steps the new partnership should take to help Georgia become the technology capital of the East Coast, a goal Duncan touted during his 2018 campaign.
The report calls for a series of high-impact, low-cost pilot programs aimed at various improvements needed to achieve that goal. Examples include K-12 digital readiness, a need that has become glaringly obvious with the switch to online learning forced on Georgia school districts by the coronavirus pandemic, and advanced food supply innovation.
Duncan said the pandemic has pointed out the need to improve the supply chain for the delivery of food.
“The ag part of this is not something that’s being left behind,” he said. “It’s one of the best opportunities we have before us. It’s unplowed territory.”
Some of the same people who served on the task force have been named to the new partnership, including former Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, who will chair its advisory board, Bostic and Paul Bowers, president and CEO of Georgia Power.
The partnership’s board also will include Pat Wilson, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development; Larry Williams, president and CEO of the Technology Association of Georgia; and Carol Tomé, CEO of United Parcel Service.
Reactor Unit 3 at the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project
ATLANTA – Georgia energy regulators are expected to vote Tuesday to verify and approve $674 million Georgia Power Co. spent on the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion during the last half of 2019.
But opponents of the $25 billion project say the state Public Service Commission (PSC) should go well beyond such a routine decision and start examining how much building two additional nuclear reactors at the site south of Augusta is ultimately going to cost and how much of that customers should have to pay.
“As we get closer to the approved completion dates, the commission should be expanding the scope of its review,” said Kurt Ebersbach, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has filed with the PSC as an intervenor in the case. “Otherwise, the commission is kind of on autopilot.”
“If we get some sense now how much residential customers will be impacted, the commission could take some steps to mitigate it,” added Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch, an Atlanta-based consumer advocacy group.
The PSC approved the Plant Vogtle expansion 11 years ago. The project’s estimated price tag at the time was $14 billion.
The cost has nearly doubled since then, due in part to the bankruptcy several years ago of Westinghouse Electric, the original prime contractor. Management of the project has since been turned over to Southern Nuclear, like Georgia Power a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co.
Obstacles with the next-generation AP1000 reactors developed by Westinghouse also contributed to the cost overruns at Plant Vogtle. Trouble with the AP1000 technology prompted two utilities in South Carolina to scrap nuclear expansion projects there three years ago.
Rather than cancel the Vogtle project, however, the PSC voted in late 2017 to let Georgia Power and three utility partners finish the work. Commissioners also agreed to hold off any decisions on whether the cost overruns encountered by the project were “prudent” and, thus, could be passed on to customers, until after the new reactors are finished.
The schedule for completing the Vogtle project also has been delayed substantially. The first of the two new reactors originally was to go into service in 2016, followed a year later by the second reactor. That timetable has slipped to November of next year for the first reactor and November 2022 for the second.
Even that schedule is in danger of further delays, while the final price tag is expected to go higher, a consultant retained by the PSC’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff testified during a hearing before the commission earlier this summer.
Donald Grace, vice president of engineering for the Vogtle Monitoring Group, said the project’s final cost is going to increase by at least $1 billion. Whether it goes higher than that depends on how far the completion dates slip beyond the current schedule, Grace said.
The coronavirus pandemic is contributing to the latest delay. Georgia Power laid off 20% of the project’s workforce in April – about 2,000 workers – after 42 employees tested positive for COVID-19.
Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning acknowledged in an earnings call last month that the project’s cost will go up by $149 million partly due to the impacts of the pandemic. However, the company still expects to get the two new reactors operational under the current timetable.
Environmental and consumer groups want the PSC to start considering how the cost increases at Vogtle are going to affect customers sooner rather than later.
But Steve Hewitson, a lawyer representing Georgia Power, told commissioners Thursday the Vogtle Construction Monitor (VCM) spending updates the utility files every six months are not the proper forum for discussions of the project’s impact on customers.
“The VCM process is for verification and approval of costs incurred and to report on progress of the Vogtle expansion project,” Georgia Power wrote in prepared statement. “It includes public hearings held at the PSC, as well as reports filed by the PSC staff’s independent construction monitor as part of Georgia’s open and transparent regulatory process.
“We agree with the [commission’s] Public Interest Advocacy Staff that specific ratemaking questions should be addressed in a separate filing with the PSC closer to commercial operations of the units.”
Ebersbach said he’d like to see Georgia Power take up the ratemaking issues sooner, when the company files its next semi-annual VCM report. The commission is expected to receive that report by the end of this month.
Coyle said even if that doesn’t happen, the testimony being provided by Grace and others is building a case that should convince the PSC ultimately to reject at least some of the cost overruns at Vogtle as unreasonable, which would force the company – not customers – to pick up the bill.
“The most important thing happening right now is the commission’s staff, the independent construction monitors and the intervenors are getting information into the record now that will be critical when the prudency hearings begin,” she said. “Hopefully, some of these costs will be deemed imprudent.”
State Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) has held a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives since 2005. (Official Georgia House photo)
A Northeast Georgia state lawmaker was stripped of his Georgia House committee chairmanship Friday for belittling the late Congressman John Lewis’ legacy in a radio interview.
It’s the second time Rep. Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson, has lost a leadership position in the General Assembly since June 2017, when he distributed an article promoting the idea that slavery did not cause the American Civil War.
Speaking with WJJC radio on Friday, Benton dismissed growing support in Congress to replace the Alexander Stephens statue in Washington, D.C., with a monument honoring Lewis, stating he had “never read of a significant piece of legislation” sponsored by the 33-year congressman.
“His only claim to fame is that he got conked on the head at the [Edmund] Pettus Bridge,” Benton said of Lewis. “And he has milked that for fifty years – or he milked it for fifty years.”
Lewis was violently beaten by police and suffered a skull fracture during a march in 1965 across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. Dubbed “Bloody Sunday,” the watershed event helped spur passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, relieved Benton as chair of the House Retirement Committee shortly after the radio remarks, calling the comments about Lewis “offensive and disgusting.”
“These comments do not reflect the values or the views of the House Majority Caucus,” Ralston said. “I can neither condone nor ignore such hurtful remarks.”
The comments came after several influential Georgia lawmakers including U.S. Sen. David Perdue and Congressman Tom Graves began pressing to replace a statute of Stephens, who was vice president of the Confederacy, with one of Lewis in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
Benton, who previously described the Ku Klux Klan as “not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order,” urged in the radio interview Friday for people to visit a Confederate museum at Stephens’ former property in Crawfordville and to “read all the stuff that he did do.”
Stephens, who was also governor of Georgia and a congressman in the late 19th century, defended white supremacy and slavery as founding principles of the Confederacy in his 1861 “Cornerstone Speech.”
Benton, a former school teacher who has served in the Georgia House since 2005, previously lost the chairmanship of the House Human Relations and Aging Committee for sharing an article with other state lawmakers titled “The Absurdity of Slavery as the Cause of the War Between the States” in June 2017.
