Exelon Continues to Mislead the Public on Nuclear Cash Grab

Harrisburg, Pa. (April 5) — Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts has issued the following statement in response to Exelon's media release on the decommissioning report of Three Mile Island Unit 1.

The decommissioning of Three Mile Island is ​ — and should remain — a boardroom decision by Exelon to close TMI, not a legislative decision. Exelon Corporation is projected to make $568 million in profits at its other two nuclear power plants, Peach Bottom and Limerick, in 2018 and 2019. Yet, while they are making this announcement, they also continue to mislead consumers and policymakers into handing them a ratepayer-funded bailout.

Continued demands for a more than half a billion-dollar ratepayer bailout that will destroy competitive markets should be rejected by policymakers. Ratepayers already paid billions of dollars to build the plants and then paid billions more to transition them to competition.

Those same ratepayers are now being asked to pay a third time, throwing more good money after bad business decisions to support a single reactor that unfortunately just never will be competitive in the energy marketplace.

As stated in Exelon’s own news release issued today, decommissioning TMI will take years to complete and require hundreds of jobs. The radioactive material that has been generated will be stored on site through 2078 and beyond. Nuclear jobs in Pennsylvania will not disappear with the closure of one uneconomical plant.

Despite the continued rhetoric from Exelon and nuclear bailout proponents, regulators have repeatedly stated that TMI can close without any impact to price, resiliency or grid reliability. It is very clear that this money-grab is about one thing: increasing the profits of already-profitable corporations.

-Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts

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