Monopoly Utility Seeks Ratepayer Dollars to Weaken Clean Water Protections
Florida’s Public Service Commission Should Reject Florida Power & Light’s Request
Contact: Jennifer Rennicks, 865-235-1448 or jennifer@cleanenergy.org
Tallahassee, Fla. – In its most outrageous move to date, Florida’s largest monopoly utility, Florida Power & Light (FPL) is arrogantly seeking a rubber stamp from the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) in a bid to use ratepayer dollars to weaken clean water protections in Florida. This action is simply wrong, and compliant though the PSC is, they must vote against this unprecedented use of monopoly utility power.
As we helped identify in Integrity Florida’s Power Play report last spring, monopoly utilities throughout Florida continue exercising their “pay to play” political power among policy makers in Tallahassee, a move that is condoned from the top all the way down.
“We are outraged about what’s happening in Tallahassee. It shows how bad the system has gotten when a big, monopoly utility, like Florida Power & Light, has the audacity to ask the Public Service Commission to use customer’s money to weaken clean water protections,” says Susan Glickman, Florida Director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “If the public was being represented, the regulators would not allow the building binge for new power plants to continue while monopoly utilities propose to kill energy conservation programs.”
“For the last decade, loopholes in the Clean Water Act have caused confusion about which streams and wetlands are protected from pollution and destruction,” said Kathy Aterno, Florida Director of Clean Water Action. “Florida’s tourism-based economy depends on healthy streams and wetlands. FPL should not use ratepayers’ money to lobby against what is in the best interests of Florida’s economy and the water supply of millions of Floridians.”
# # #
Founded in 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible energy choices that create global warming solutions and ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at www.cleanenergy.org
Clean Water Action is a national non-profit organization established in 1974 with 1 million members nationwide working for clean and safe water, clean energy and environmental health. CWA’s campaigns empower people to make democracy work.
Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.