PSC votes to let Georgia Power keep fleecing ratepayers for Vogtle nuclear boondoggle

ATLANTA, GA —The state’s Public Service Commission today failed consumers by approving Georgia Power’s proposal to finish Plant Vogtle, a slipshod nuclear project plagued by multi-year construction delays, bankruptcy, and a cost that has ballooned to more than $25 billion.

The PSC voted unanimously this morning to let Georgia Power pursue Vogtle’s completion, despite the project’s checkered history and the fact that the utility’s customers have been paying upfront for the project since 2009—residential customers have been paying pay about $100 a year—even though no energy has been generated there.

In response to the commissioners’ vote, Ted Terry, director of the Sierra Club’s Georgia Chapter, issued the following statement:

“The commission has failed Georgia’s hard-working families and businesses today by choosing to be lapdogs for Georgia Power instead of watchdogs for the people of Georgia.

“Georgia Power’s profits have soared because they’ve been allowed to pick the pockets of families, schools and churches for a boondoggle that even the PSC’s staff has called too uneconomic to continue—yet today commissioners chose not to stop it.

“Vogtle is not the answer for powering our future—which is why no other utility in this country is trying to build a nuclear power plant.

“Georgia Power should scrap this disaster immediately and instead transition away from dangerous nuclear and fossil fuel-based electric generation and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy that creates good jobs, protects our environment and shields our communities from the gross financial risks associated with bad bets like Vogtle.”