Media Statement: Fla. PSC staff recommendation
The staff recommendation represents business as usual at the Florida Public Service Commission. Its staff recommends allowing Progress to recover $207 million from its customers for unlicensed reactors, yet Progress projects investing only $87 million next year for energy efficiency – a resource that displaces the need for speculative reactors that won’t operate for nearly a decade, if ever, and helps customers reduce their bills and meet their family budgets today.
The staff recommendation to grant nearly all that FPL asked for, nearly $63 million that Florida families and businesses would be on the hook for, was very disappointing but apparently not surprising given the controversy that has clouded the PSC over the last many weeks.
The staff essentially rejected all the arguments made by the Office of Public Counsel, the Florida Industrial Public Users Group, PCS Phosphate-White Springs* and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, siding with FPL and Progress Energy.
We hope that the PCS Commissioners will make the right decision next week when they vote on October 15, 2009 and protect Florida citizens from the risky ventures that FPL and Progress continue to pursue.
*Note PCS Phosphate-White Springs intervened in the Progress case but not FPL.