Four senators propose bill to modify nuke bill that has cost customers $1 billion

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/state-senators-to-utilities-build-nuclear-power-or-risk-loss-of-funding/1276080

State senators to utilities: Build nuclear power or risk loss of funding

By Ivan Penn and Mary Ellen Klas, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Thursday, February 21, 2013 4:13pm

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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.

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Lawmakers in 2006 passed the legislation as a way to hasten construction of new nuclear plants. The goal was to diversify the state's energy mix to prevent an over reliance on natural gas, which could fluctuate wildly in price.

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."

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