Brian Opposes Florida Nuclear Plants-Use of Citizen Money
SOCIALIST OPPOSES UTILITY CONSTRUCTION OF NEW FLORIDA NUCLEAR SITES AND USE OF CONSUMER MONEY–One Week Later Utility Lowers Rate Increase
BROOKSVILLE, FLORIDA, Wednesday, March 18, 2009: Socialist and civic activist Brian Moore testified at a public hearing last Wednesday, March 11th, in Brooksville, Florida, in opposition to Progress Energy Utility’s construction of two new nuclear reactors proposed for southern Levy County, Florida, and its use of consumer monies. The project will cost $17 billion dollars, and if approved, be completed by 2017.
The civic activist criticized both the “early cost recovery” fees the “for-profit” utility is charging, under Florida law, of electric power customers, plus, the utility’s ”unwillingness to assume financial risk” by using consumer monies instead of tapping into investor, bank or Wall Street loans.
Judge J.L. Johnston, of the state of Florida Division of Administrative Hearings, conducted the hearing and administered the veracity oath to Moore prior to his testimony.
Today, in a related story, newspapers reported that Progress Energy was dropping its monthly electric bill increases to customers by 11%. Local newspapers reported on the public outrage at the higher bills in January, then totaling 24%, in order to pay for the Levy County nuclear plant and higher fuel costs in 2008. With the newest 11% reduction, the utility’s rates, while still an increase, fell back to 13% higher.
Moore, while recognizing that the reduction was coincidental to his recent testimony, expressed “some satisfaction” that the power company “is listening to consumers,” but he “still hoped for governmental denial of all nuclear project permits.”
The Brooksville hearing, one of four required by the state in nearby counties, was Florida Energy Power company’s efforts to gain official certification for laying transmission power lines through eight central Florida counties as a pre-condition for its efforts to gain state and federal government approval to construct the two new nuclear plants, side-by-side. Progress Energy services more than 1.6 million customers in 35 counties in north and central Florida.
The two reactors would be an expansion of the nearby Crystal River nuclear plant in nearby Citrus County, some ten miles south of the newly proposed site. The two projects would be the 33rd and 34th nuclear plants proposed for new construction in the United States. There are presently 104 nuclear plants in operation in the country now, and 404 worldwide.
Since the Three-Mile Island (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) accident in 1979, there has been no new construction of nuclear reactors in the country. The Levy county project would be one of the first to begin anew the nuclear construction projects.
Moore’s testimony, as a resident of nearby Hernando county, as an electric power consumer and homeowner, and as an active Socialist Party USA member and state officer, also included his concerns over public and environmental safety, dangers from terrorists takeovers of local plants and nuclear waste exposure and its disposal problems. Recently the Obama Administration indicated it would cancel the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada for storing the highly contaminable used nuclear fuels, thus, Moore stated, ”opening up Florida as a possible new state for national storage.”
The Socialist also expressed concern over the “related collapsing American and world economy,” Wall Street’s bankruptcy and the “many risks involved in such a highly expensive and potentially dangerous environmental project.” Moore said his minor political party has always called for both the “phasing out of all nuclear power, and the exporting of nuclear technology and weapons.” Moore further stated that his socialist party would like to see “municipal ownership and local democratic control” of all energy plants, in a “non-profit and decentralized system,” highlighting the party’s concern for the “careful use of natural resources and safety of its citizens.”
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