Customers would face burden to fund plant

The Senate Commerce Committee is actively considering House File 561, which would allow a utility to collect the costs of licensing, permitting and construction of a new nuclear power plant from ratepayers before the plant ever operates. I oppose this bill.

Estimated cost of construction is $2 billion. This would add a huge increase to electric utility customer rates.

The risk falls on the ratepayers if the plant is completed and, because of decreasing natural gas prices, they can't sell the electricity at competitive rates and/or the plant's capacity is either underutilized or not used at all.

If the plant is not completed because of market conditions (and other cheaper power sources being used), then the ratepayers still have to incur the costs up to that point.

In short, this House bill is a great thing for stockholders of the utility building the plant but it is disaster for electric utility ratepayers. I am not concerned about the safety of this nuclear plant; it's the unfairness and risk burden placed on the customers of the utility rather than the stockholders. There are cheaper sources of power generation than nuclear. Natural gas is one.

Chris Burr

Cedar Rapids