RALEIGH—An
array of more than 15 leading environmental, consumer, and social
justice groups, including AARP North Carolina, NC Justice Center, and
Southern Environmental Law Center, are calling on House lawmakers to
make key changes to S. 3, the energy bill that includes a blank check
for more coal and nuclear power plants along with promotions for
renewable energy sources.
Environmental
advocates are asking House lawmakers to ensure that the bill does not
accelerate the construction of the very plants that renewable energy
and energy efficiency measures are intended to offset.
“Unfortunately,
the bill’s renewable energy benefits are now overshadowed by provisions
that would promote new coal and nuclear plants,” said Elizabeth Ouzts,
state director of Environment North Carolina, one of the groups calling
for changes. “We’re asking House lawmakers to make the Clean Energy
bill clean again.”
The
state’s investor-owned utilities lobbied successfully for provisions in
the bill that reverse decades-old policy for financing construction of
new power plants. The changes, which allow utilities to pass on the
costs of constructing new plants before those plants are complete, are
drawing fire from consumer groups.
"By
shifting the financial risk for the construction of new power plants to
consumers, utilities will be emboldened to build more dangerous nuclear
plants, with more cost overruns, resulting in higher rates for all
North Carolinians." said Rob Thompson of the N.C. Public Interest
Research Group.
Al
Ripley, director of NC Justice Center's Consumer Action Network, noted
the impact of those provisions on poor and working class families.
"While
all of us will see a significant bump in our electricity bills, low-
and fixed-income consumers that already struggle to pay their monthly
bills are the last people that should be financing the construction of
expensive new power plants,” said Ripley.
The
groups delivered separate letters—one detailing environmental concerns,
the other summarizing consumer complaints—to all 120 lawmakers in
advance of the first hearing of S. 3, “Promote Renewable
Energy/Baseload Generation” in the House Energy and Energy Efficiency
Committee, expected today at noon. Senate lawmakers moved the complex,
27-page bill through its process in less than three hours, with little
discussion and debate. Advocates are asking for a fuller debate in the
House.
