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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Will Florida Utility Customers Pay Now for Future Power?

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Monday, August 21, 2017   

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A federal appeals court hears arguments this week in a case challenging a Florida law that leaves utility customers on the hook for speculative nuclear projects.

The controversial nuclear cost-recovery law passed in 2006, at a time when nuclear power appeared to be making a comeback, but things have changed with the rise of renewable energy.

Utility watchdog J.R. Kelly, public counsel for the Florida Office of Public Counsel, is asking regulators to reject the latest multi-billion dollar request by the state's largest utility, Florida Power & Light.

"We have a fundamental concern that ratepayers should not be paying profit on these costs when it is unknown if the facility is even going to be built," Kelly states.

The plaintiffs contend the nuclear cost-recovery law is unconstitutional and seek to recoup $2 billion they say utility customers have already paid.

FPL says it isn’t the right party to be sued – that it is following state law, so the State of Florida should be on the hot seat. But the plaintiffs say it's the utility collecting money from consumers.

Attorney George Cavros with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy says ratepayers should be outraged over Florida's nuclear cost-recovery law.

"All the risk, all the costs, effectively fall upon their customers,” he stresses. “So, these utilities are encouraged to keep pursuing projects even when they don't make sense, because they can recover, and they're guaranteed recovery, essentially."

A federal district judge last year dismissed the case, prompting the plaintiffs to go to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta.




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