HEADLINES

• House members weigh PSC reform proposals
• Web Resource Offers Energy Efficiency Program Support to Public Power Utilities
• Report explores reducing GH emissions by replacing coal power with natural gas
• Judges rule against nuclear power reactors on Florida’s coast

House members weigh PSC reform proposals

As the Florida Senate prepares for a final vote on a series of Public Service Commission reforms when lawmakers open the 2010 session next month, a House panel took up the PSC’s own proposals Wednesday and began work on a companion measure.

The PSC has already made public its support for Sen. Mike Fasano's Senate reform bill (SB 1034) and has also made some further suggestions that included extending a ban on lobbying the executive or legislative branches of state government to four years. The measure has already been cleared for a floor vote in the upper chamber, while lawmakers across the hall in the House have not yet voted on any bills on the matter.

But House Energy & Utilities Policy Council Chairman Rep. Steve Precourt said that would change in the “not too distant future,” as the panel took up the PSC’s own recommendations Wednesday. The measure was inspired by staffers at the utility regulatory agency being accused last fall of inappropriately communicating electronically with utility employees as the state's largest power companies were asking for record rate increases.

The PSC is recommending extending the ban on off-the-record communications, known as ex parte communications, from 90 days before cases are heard to 120, though the Senate bill makes the ban indefinite at the urging of customer advocates who typically argue against utility rate increases at the PSC.

The Energy & Utilities Committee largely agreed on Wednesday with need for changes at the PSC, but several members of the panel pelted PSC General Counsel Curt Kiser with questions on the specifics of the panel’s plan. One of the areas lawmakers took aim at was the extended lobbying ban, which was also incorporated into the Senate bill.

“What is the magic of three years versus five years, four years versus 10 years versus never?” Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, asked. “Are we not then making it unattractive for qualified good people to be involved with the Public Service Commission because once you are, you’re thrown out of the industry it seems?”

Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, agreed, saying that the restriction would go even further than regulations on state judges, and would run counter to state efforts to decrease unemployment by delaying former PSC staffers from getting jobs within the industry.

“Our Supreme Court doesn’t have this type of restriction on them,” Williams said. “It’s the highest court in the state and they don’t have a four year prohibition on them. I have some concern that if we were to take these recommendations that we would unfairly be imposing something on a regulating body that we don’t impose on ourselves as legislators.”

Kiser said the PSC recommendation was intended to reduce the revolving door some say exists between the panel and the industries it regulates.

“Sen. Fasano said it best when he referenced a newspaper report that there were quite a number of commissioners and commission staff that had left the commission and gone to work for regulated industries even with two-year prohibition,” he said. “The thought was if you expanded it to four years, you would cut down on that even further.”

However, he acknowledged that the lobbying ban could prevent PSC employees who don’t spend a lot of time working for the agency from finding jobs elsewhere in the industries the panel overseas.

“It’s your call,” Kiser said. “You apply your thoughts about it…and we’ll live with it.”

Another member of the committee, Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, said that the controversy at the PSC last fall did not necessitate sweeping changes to state law regarding the panel, an opinion seemingly not shared with lawmakers appearing poised to pass legislation early in the 2010 session.

“We have an extensive set of sunshine laws and ethics review oversight processes and my posture is if somebody breaks the law and the rules, that doesn’t mean we need more laws and rules,” Van Zant said. “We need to enforce the laws and rules we have.”

However, Committee Chairman Rep. Precourt signaled there would indeed be new laws coming from the House to join the reforms being fast-tracked in the Senate.

“At the appropriate time in the not too distant future, this committee intends to develop legislation to address these issues (and) other recommendations we’ve seen floating around out there, some of the things from the Senate,” he said.

From News Service Florida

posted 2.18.10

Web Resource Offers Energy Efficiency Program Support to Public Power Utilities

The Clean and Efficient Energy Program (CEEP) has launched www.cleanefficientenergy.org, an online resource that encourages the sharing of experiences, best practices and educational resources among energy efficiency program managers at public power utilities. CEEP’s online community enables stakeholders to learn about and discuss aspects of energy efficiency program design, implementation and evaluation, while making connections with peers and energy efficiency experts.

CEEP is a partnership of the Alliance to Save Energy,, the American Public Power Association, , and the Large Public Power Council to promote and support the energy efficiency efforts of locally-owned utilities.

www.cleanefficientenergy.org features a comprehensive resource library where users can easily access decades’ worth of advice, how-to guidance and case studies, researched by and gathered from public and private sector leaders. Through ratings and comments, the user
community can be actively involved in defining best practice strategies. CEEP frequently adds new materials to the site, however users are also encouraged to upload resources that they find helpful and to share information about their own successes and challenges.

In addition, users can seek or offer advice in CEEP’s discussion forums by joining an ongoing conversation or starting a new discussion thread. Overtime, CEEP will increasingly become a product of its users as it captures more and more information based on real world experiences.

posted 2.3.10

Report explores reducing GH emissions by replacing coal power with natural gas 

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service, Displacing Coal with Generation from Existing Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants, offers an overview of the issues involved in displacing coal-fired generation with electricity from existing natural gas plants. The report explores replacing some coal power with natural gas generation, compared to coal a lower-carbon source of electricity, by increasing the power output from currently underutilized natural gas plants as an option for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the Displacing Coal with Generation from Existing Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants does not claim to provide definitive answers, it does highlight the key issues that Congress may need to consider in deciding whether to rely on, and encourage, displacement of coal-fired electricity with power from existing natural gas plants.

The report finds that the potential for displacing coal by making greater use of existing gas-fired power plants depends on numerous factors:

• The amount of excess natural gas-fired generating capacity available
• The current operating patterns of coal and gas plants, and the amount of flexibility power system operators have for changing those patterns
• Whether or not the transmission grid can deliver power from existing gas power plants to loads currently served by coal plants
• Whether there is sufficient natural gas supply, and pipeline and gas storage capacity, to deliver large amounts of additional fuel to gas-fired power plants

The report concludes that Congress needs to authorize a subsequent study to determine – using complicated computer modeling – whether there is sufficient excess gas fired capacity, and the supporting transmission and other infrastructure, to displace a material volume of coal over the near term.

View Displacing Coal with Generation from Existing Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants

Posted 1.28.10

Judges rule against nuclear power reactors on Florida’s coast

Three Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners have upheld the July 2009 ruling by a panel of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) that is hearing a challenge to two new Progress Energy Florida (PEF) nuclear reactors in Levy County, Florida. Three organizations, the Ecology Party of Florida, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and the Green Party of Florida are representing the interests of members living within a 50 mile radius of the proposed new nuclear site, located in the Florida Nature Coast less than 10 miles from the existing PEF Crystal River Nuclear Power Station. The Levy County reactors are projected to cost $17 billion.

The landmark ruling, handed down on Thursday, January 7 in response to an appeal by PEF, affirms that the ASLB will hear very broad concerns raised by the Intervening groups, including impacts of a new nuclear plant on ground and surface waters, endangered species, and environmental and safety issues of generating so-called “low-level” radioactive waste that currently has no off-site disposal option.

The hearing on the PEF license application will proceed with development of expert testimony, the publication of federal documents on safety and environment and then in 2011 or 2012, a hearing that will be conducted by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

View the NRC ruling

View the NIRS, Ecology Party, Green Party challenge to Progress Energy

View the NRC and Atomic Safety and Licensing Board contentions rulings on standing, contention admissibility, motion to file new contention, and selection of hearing procedure

Posted 1.15.10

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