September, 30 2014, 02:30pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Expert Contacts:
Damon Moglen, Friends of the Earth: (202) 352-4223, dmoglen@foe.org
David Freeman, (310) 902-2147, greencowboysdf@gmail.com
Communications Contacts:
EA Dyson, (202) 222-0730, edyson@foe.org (East Coast)
Bill Walker, (510) 759-9911, bw.deadline@gmail.com (West Coast)
Citing High Costs to Ratepayers, Friends of the Earth petitions CPUC for Shutdown of Diablo Canyon and Transition to Renewable Energy
WASHINGTON
In its petition filed today with the California Public Utilities Commission, Friends of the Earth called the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant too expensive to operate and called for its replacement with cheaper and more reliable renewable energy sources, by 2018.
Friends of the Earth's complaint points out that despite a history of huge cost overruns and rate increases to pay for them, Diablo Canyon will also need additional billions of dollars to comply with water quality and safety upgrades. It urges the CPUC to order Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to begin selling power from Diablo Canyon on the wholesale market, ending the unfair policy of making customers pay for PG&E's operational costs plus a guaranteed profit. It says PG&E should also be ordered to plan for an orderly transition to renewable energy, efficiency and storage, to avoid the scramble for power that followed the closure last year of the San Onofre nuclear plant in Southern California after equipment failures caused a radiation leak.
"It's the policy of the State of California that utilities should have to compete on the open market," said David Freeman, former head of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. "But PG&E still the enjoys the benefits of a sweetheart deal that forces consumers to pay whatever the utility spends plus a guaranteed return on investment," said Freeman, a special advisor to Friends of the Earth. "Let's see how willing PG&E is to keep pouring billions into Diablo Canyon if it has to compete against cheaper, safer and more reliable sources of energy."
Diablo Canyon Unit 1 was supposed to cost $188 million, and $192 million for Unit 2. However, construction costs escalated to such an extent that by the time both reactors began operation, in 1985 and 1986 respectively, the combined cost of the plant had ballooned to $5.52 billion. According to the complaint, PG&E has also "grossly underestimated the costs of operating Diablo Canyon in the future and has seriously overestimated the costs of alternative, especially renewable, resources that could replace the energy that Diablo currently provides."
The complaint cites a February 19, 2014 letter from CPUC President Michael Peevey raising numerous questions about the future costs of operating Diablo Canyon. The letter warns that the Commission will not authorize PG&E to spend ratepayers' money to seek a renewal of its federal operating license unless the company can show that continued operation makes economic sense. The complaint says the commission should not take PG&E's word on that, but, rather, should investigate its claims in open public hearings.
Among the significant costs faced by Diablo Canyon are how to fix its "once-through" cooling system. Currently, the coastal plant takes in seawater, uses it to cool the plant's reactors, then discharges it back into the Pacific Ocean. The heated seawater is responsible for killing vast numbers of fish and other aquatic species each year, and the State Water Resources Control Board has ordered PG&E to find an alternate cooling method. The most feasible solution would be to build two huge cooling towers at an estimated cost of between $2 and 10 billion.
In addition to spending large sums on once-through cooling upgrades, PG&E will also be subject to major new safety-related upgrades in response to the Fukushima disaster three years ago in Japan. As Diablo is surrounded by active earthquake faults - several of them unknown at the time of design and construction - the costs of retrofitting Diablo to meet these post-Fukushima seismic and other safety requirements are likely to cost several additional billion dollars.
Friends of the Earth's complaint is supported by an affidavit from Peter Bradford, a former Chairman of the New York Public Service Commission and member of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, now a professor at Vermont Law School.
"California electric customers and California environmental goals will be best served by requiring that Diablo Canyon's future revenue stream be determined by the value of its output in the California energy market," Bradford's affidavit says. "If PG&E must recover the costs of Diablo Canyon...in the California power market, its management will have every incentive to measure whether the operating costs and risks plus those of necessary new investments will be successful in competition with the alternatives available in the California power market."
- See more at: https://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2014-09-citing-high-costs-to-rat...
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
Booze Hound! Lina Khan, Not Done Yet, Targets Nation's Largest Alcohol Seller
"The FTC is doing what our government should be doing: using every tool possible to make life better for everyday Americans," said one advocate.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, alleging that the nation's largest alcohol distributor, "violated the Robinson-Patman Act, harming small, independent businesses by depriving them of access to discounts and rebates, and impeding their ability to compete against large national and regional chains."
The FTC said its complaint details how the Florida-based company "is engaged in anticompetitive and unlawful price discrimination" by "selling wine and spirits to small, independent 'mom-and-pop' businesses at prices that are drastically higher" than what it charges large chain retailers, "with dramatic price differences that provide insurmountable advantages that far exceed any real cost efficiencies for the same bottles of wine and spirits."
The suit comes as FTC Chair Lina Khan's battle against "corporate greed" is nearing its end, with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announcing Tuesday that he plans to elevate Andrew Ferguson to lead the agency.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of corporate power at Demand Progress Education Fund, said Thursday that "instead of heeding bad-faith calls to disarm before the end of the year, the FTC is taking bold, needed action to fight back against monopoly power that's raising prices."
"By suing Southern Glazer under the Robinson-Patman Act, a law that has gone unenforced for decades, the FTC is doing what our government should be doing: using every tool possible to make life better for everyday Americans," she added.
According to the FTC:
Under the Robinson-Patman Act, it is generally illegal for sellers to engage in price discrimination that harms competition by charging higher prices to disfavored retailers that purchase similar goods. The FTC's case filed today seeks to ensure that businesses of all sizes compete on a level playing field with equivalent access to discounts and rebates, which means increased consumer choice and the ability to pass on lower prices to consumers shopping across independent retailers.
"When local businesses get squeezed because of unfair pricing practices that favor large chains, Americans see fewer choices and pay higher prices—and communities suffer," Khan said in a statement. "The law says that businesses of all sizes should be able to compete on a level playing field. Enforcers have ignored this mandate from Congress for decades, but the FTC's action today will help protect fair competition, lower prices, and restore the rule of law."
The FTC noted that, with roughly $26 billion in revenue from wine and spirits sales to retail customers last year, Southern is the 10th-largest privately held company in the United States. The agency said its lawsuit "seeks to obtain an injunction prohibiting further unlawful price discrimination by Southern against these small, independent businesses."
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Southern Glazer's published a statement calling the FTC lawsuit "misguided and legally flawed" and claiming it has not violated the Robinson-Patman Act.
"Operating in the highly competitive alcohol distribution business, we offer different levels of discounts based on the cost we incur to sell different quantities to customers and make all discount levels available to all eligible retailers, including chain stores and small businesses alike," the company said.
Peterson-Cassin noted that the new suit "follows a massive court victory for the FTC on Tuesday in which a federal judge blocked a $25 billion grocery mega-merger after the agency sued," a reference to the proposed Kroger-Albertsons deal.
"The FTC has plenty of fight left and so should all regulatory agencies," she added, alluding to the return of Trump, whose first administration saw
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As Senate Democrats prepared to move forward with a procedural vote on the annual defense budget package that passed in the House earlier this week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus outlined its objections to the legislation and called for the Pentagon budget to be cut, with military funding freed up to "reinvest in critical human needs."
CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said following the passage of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2025 (H.R. 5009) that "it should alarm every American taxpayer that we are nearing a trillion-dollar annual budget for an agency rampant with waste, fraud, and abuse."
Jayapal, who was one of 140 lawmakers to oppose the package, emphasized that the Pentagon has failed seven consecutive annual audits.
Despite being the only federal agency to never have passed a federal audit, said Jayapal, the Department of Defense "continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better."
As Common Dreams reported last month, more than half of the department's annual budget now goes to military contractors that consistently overcharge the government, contributing to the Pentagon's inability to fully account for trillions of taxpayer dollars.
The $883.7 billion legislation that was advanced by the House on Wednesday would pour more money into the Pentagon's coffers. The package includes more than $500 million in Israeli military aid and two $357 million nuclear-powered attack submarine despite the Pentagon requesting only one, and would cut more than $621 million from President Joe Biden's budget request for climate action initiatives.
Jayapal noted that the legislation—which was passed with the support of 81 Democrats and 200 Republicans—also includes anti-transgender provisions, barring the children of military service members from receiving gender-affirming healthcare in "the first federal statute targeting LGBTQ people since the 1990s when Congress adopted 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and the Defense of Marriage Act."
"This dangerous bigotry cannot be tolerated, let alone codified into federal law," said Jayapal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the legislation "has some very good things we Democrats wanted in it, it has some bad things we wouldn't have put in there, and some things that were left out," and indicated that he had filed cloture for the first procedural vote on the NDAA.
The vote is expected to take place early next week, and 60 votes are needed to begin debate on the package.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime critic of exorbitant U.S. military spending, said in a floor speech on Wednesday that he plans to vote no on the budget.
"While middle-class and working-class families are struggling to survive, we supposedly just don't have the financial resources to help them," he said. "We just cannot afford to build more housing, we just cannot afford to provide quality childcare to our kids or to support public education, or to provide healthcare to all."
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Jayapal noted that the funding package includes substantive pay raises for service members and new investments in housing, healthcare, childcare, and other support for their families.
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By cutting military spending, she said, the federal government could invest in the needs of all Americans, not just members of the military, "without sacrificing our national security or service member wages."
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"As Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, it is more important than ever to take the power to start a nuclear war out of the hands of a single individual and ensure that Congress's constitutional role is respected and fulfilled," wrote Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ted Lieu.
Dec 12, 2024
Two Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden Thursday, urging him to place more checks on potential nuclear weapons use by mandating that a president must obtain authorization from Congress before initiating a nuclear first strike.
The letter writers, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), argue that "such a policy would provide clear directives for the military to follow: A president could order a nuclear launch only if (1) Congress had approved the decision, providing a constitutional check on executive power or (2) the United States had already been attacked with a nuclear weapon. This would be infinitely safer than our current doctrine."
The two write that time is of the essence: "As Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, it is more important than ever to take the power to start a nuclear war out of the hands of a single individual and ensure that Congress's constitutional role is respected and fulfilled."
The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war (though presidents have used military force without getting the OK from Congress on multiple occasions in modern history, according to the National Constitution Center).
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons policy was produced, speed was seen as essential to deterrence, according to Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last year that makes a similar argument to Markey and Lieu.
"There is no reason today to rely on speedy decision-making during situations in which the United States might launch first. Even as relations with Moscow are at historic lows, we are worlds removed from the Cold War's dominant knife's-edge logic," he wrote.
While nuclear tensions today may not be quite as high as they were during the apex of the Cold War, fears of nuclear confrontation have been heightened due to poor relations between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, among other issues. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use not long after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long range weapons in its fight against Russia.
This is not the first time Markey and Lieu have pushed for greater guardrails on nuclear first-use. The two are the authors of the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, a proposed bill first introduced in 2017 that would bar a U.S. president from launching a nuclear first strike without the consent of Congress.
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In their letter, Markey and Lieu also recount an episode from the first Trump presidency when, shortly after the January 6 insurrection, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley ordered his staff to come to him if they received a nuclear strike order from Trump.
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