Electricity Prices Impact 'Mom and Dad Raising a Family and Businesses'

Harrisburg, Pa. (April 8) — Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts has issued the following statement ahead of today's House Consumer Affairs Committee hearing for House Bill 11.

Today, the House Consumer Affairs Committee is expected to hear testimony from former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge in support of the disastrous House Bill 11.

This is a complete turn for a former governor whose legacy includes ushering Pennsylvania into electric competition. In fact, as recently as 2016, at the 20th Anniversary Recognition Ceremony of Electric Choice in Pennsylvania, Ridge was quoted as saying:

'I wanted to be a leader among states, a competitor among nations. And if you’re going to lead among states you need to get your power prices down, and at the time I think we were 15 or 20 percent higher than everybody around, and that affects the average consumer, Mom and Dad raising a family, and it also affected business. Congratulations to the PUC and everybody else that’s had a hand in not only implementing the legislation but also making sure that it’s a sustained effort to keep those prices low through competitive generation, which is something both parties have embraced for 20 years.'

Last week, Ridge penned a guest editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette suggesting that competition can still flourish, even if Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard is expanded to include nuclear energy. ​ 

While our coalition shares Ridge’s support of a diverse energy portfolio, recently introduced legislation in the House and Senate would effectively eliminate competition while reducing Pennsylvania’s grid diversity.

House Bill 11 and Senate Bill 510 would allow state policymakers to dictate where 68 percent of Pennsylvania’s electric generation is derived, with 50 percent going to nuclear corporations (Tiers 1, 2 and 3). When only 32 percent of electric generation is open to competition, you no longer have a competitive energy market. ​ ​ 

This bill effectively would eliminate the ability of consumers to choose an electricity plan that works best for them, including shopping based on price or choosing a plan that is 100 percent renewable. This key component of electric competition swiftly would be replaced by a similar government mandate that the Ridge administration worked hard to eliminate.

Additionally, we’ve seen how the renewables argument touted by the Senate and House bill sponsors has played out in other states. In New York, despite the promise that the bailout policy would support renewable energy, in 2017, 99 percent of the hundreds of millions of dollars collected from consumers to pay for the program went directly to Exelon Corp.¹

At its core, this issue isn’t about clean energy, consumers, workers, resiliency, reliability or local impacts: It is about the bottom line of three already profitable nuclear corporations who will stop at nothing to mislead Pennsylvanians and their representatives to boost their profits. ​ ​ 

With projections of significant profits in the outward years, Exelon, FirstEnergy Solutions and Talen Energy should focus on improving their efficiency and costs, like all other businesses and industries in the commonwealth.

The disastrous Senate Bill 510 and its nearly identical companion, House Bill 11, would increase electricity costs for Pennsylvanians by more than $500 million a year, indefinitely, to benefit already profitable nuclear corporations at the expense of Pennsylvania ratepayers.

-Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts

Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts is a diverse coalition of Pennsylvania citizens’ groups, power generators, and energy, business and manufacturing associations.

1- Alliance for Green Economy: Oswego Today