In the spring of 2009, we fought to stop AmerenUE from undoing the CWIP legislation–“we” being consumer protection groups, large manufacturing companies, lots of Dems and even a few Republican legislators. And, oh yes, Governor Nixon.

At the time, I wrote that Nixon: “is not opposed to more nuclear power, but he is opposed to ratepayers shelling out up front and then watching the shareholders take the resulting profits.” That’s what the fight was about, whether Ameren could undo a 1976 law that forbids it to make consumers pay upfront for the risky enterprise of building a nuclear plant.

Labor wanted the plant and the job of building it for the next ten years, and Nixon has apparently decided to help the unions out. But he intends to have his cake and eat it too. That is, he’d like to pretend he still supports CWIP, while pleasing the labor base by undermining CWIP. He’ll accomplish these contradictory goals by helping Ameren get $40 million of ratepayer money to assist the utility in paying for federal permit costs.

A year and a half ago, Nixon promised to veto any legislation that would undo the CWIP law. But now, now he says that a new plant would bring lots of jobs and, get this, he’s not helping undo the CWIP law, he’s just helping with the permitting process.  Never mind that the permit does Ameren no good unless it can undo CWIP, because if we don’t pay upfront, Ameren can’t finance the humongous, technically tricky project. Yes, I know that Nixon says Ameren has “formed a coalition with other electrical cooperatives and utility companies that plan to invest in the nuclear plant.” That might make getting financing a little bit easier, but it won’t be enough. And yes, I know that Nixon says this $40 mill will only kick in if Ameren gets the permit and it will cost each ratepayer less than a couple of dollars a year. (But that’s just to get the forty million. Paying upfront for another plant will cost ratepayers at least as much, probably a bundle more, than investing in green solutions to our coal addiction.)

A comic strip called Frazz in the Saturday Post expressed my opinion of Nixon’s reasoning. Frazz, a determined young athlete, stands next to his bike, helmet on, with rain pelting him and says: “True, it’s not the best day. But it could be the last day for awhile that’s even this nice.” An eight year old boy who’s a friend of Frazz winces and says: “All that logic and so little sense.”

 

Anyone who says rural Missouri offers no exposure to theater and the arts must have missed the amazing production hosted by the Franklin County Planning and Zoning Commission at East Central College last night.    The 500 seat theater was filled almost to capacity with folks who came to hear AmerenUE officials and lawyers explain how building a 400 acre coal ash landfill next to the Missouri River would be a great way to store toxic waste safely.  Roughly 2/3 of the audience also wanted to present their thoughts on why this maybe isn’t such a good idea.

But, despite a long article in the local paper about this issue and an invitation to the public to attend the hearing last night, it turned out to be a bizarre game of “Let’s Pretend.”  At the outset, Planning and Zoning Vice Chair Kevin Kriete announced that speakers wanting to present their thoughts and opinions should NOT mention any specific landfill project.  Citizens, including a team of professional lawyers and engineers representing Ameren Corp, were told to speak only to the general issue of landfill regulations and the changes to those regs under consideration by the commission.

Act 1, Scene 1:  Lights, camera, action.    A totally flummoxed lawyer for Ameren did his best to present the bright and happy side of the company’s plan to totally surround the toxic waste with a berm of dirt that would never wash away in a flood.  Considering the restrictions imposed by the commission vice chair, the poor guy did a pretty good job of dancing around what he actually came to talk about.  While the audience pretended not to know he was actually talking about the Labadie plant and landfill,  a  huge photo of that very site was projected on the screen behind the commissioners.

Act 1, Scene 2:  An engineer familiar with Missouri state landfill regulations reassured the audience that all is well in the Show Me State.  Except when it’s not.   And a man who worked in coal-fired plants for over 40 years testified  that he’d never heard of anyone getting sick from coal dust.  Several members of the audience offered to meet with him after the hearing.

Although audience participation was strongly discouraged, a few rowdy theater goers demanded equal time to ask why the commission decided to rewrite the landfill zoning laws at this time when the Planning and Zoning Department is currently in the process of developing a new comprehensive plan.   Scottie Eagan, Interim Senior County Planner, played her part convincingly and admitted that the zoning regs rewrite was prompted by Ameren’s plan for the coal waste landfill.    But there’s the rub.  Ameren has not actually applied for permission to build the landfill, so there is no proposal on the table to be discussed specifically.

While audience members carefully juggled their willing suspension of disbelief with the reality hitting them in the face, the vice commission chair reminded each of the 20 or so citizens waiting to  speak against the landfill not to actually mention the landfill.

Act 2, Scene 1:  Maxine Lipeles  of Washington University School of Law offered a stunning performance as she represented members of the Labadie Environmental Organization, the strongest opponents of the coal waste landfill.  After a few introductory remarks about how the commissioners had been playing “cat and mouse” with the public on this issue, and without referring to the gigantic map of the Labadie plant on the screen behind the commissioners, she explained that the land being proposed for the landfill was actually under water in the 1993 flood.   “Our issue is that Ameren wants to put this landf …. or, somebody might want (laughter from audience) to put a landfill in that location,” Lipeles said.

By this time, the audience was totally confused but good naturedly willing to play along with the game plan.

When Ms. Lipeles asked when and if the Commission would hold a hearing specifically on the Ameren proposal for the landfill, Vice Chair Kriete reiterated that, since there is no actual application for a coal ash landfill, there is no need for a public hearing on it.  However, if concerned citizens would like to attend a regular meeting of the P & Z Commission on July 20, the topic might just come up again.

Act 2, Scene 2:  Now fully engaged in the pretense, opponents of the “non-proposal” for a coal ash landfill took the stage one at a time.  Some spoke eloquently of the dumping of coal ash on land that had been alive with trees, plants and a lake full of fish only to see everything wither and die.  Oops, we aren’t supposed to talk about coal ash.   Another player listed the 20 or so toxic elements in coal ash including mercury, lead and arsenic before being cut off by  vice chairman Mao.  The man who sold his farmland to Ameren tried to explain that he had been deceived by the company,  but, being a bit player, he was unceremoniously shuffled off stage.

One brave soul actually suggested that the commission go back to the drawing board, establish an ad hoc committee to study landfill issues and prepare some kind of plan based on current scientific thinking.   Loud applause.

Another participant read the P & Z Department mission statement which includes the goal of “protection of public, private and natural resources” of the county which didn’t seem to cause any particular discomfort to the main characters onstage.  In fact, Richard Wilson, County Public Works Director, asked members of the audience to offer their solutions for safe storage of coal ash to which someone shouted, “Ask Ameren. They did a five-year study and know what the alternatives are.”

Intermission at 9:30 p.m. came as a great relief to folks who had sat patiently, although totally confused, for close to three hours.   This writer left at that point with a sense of having participated in some of the best mystery theater available in small town America.  

Saturday morning. KSLQ 1350 AM radio.  “The Mouth”

A local Franklin County radio station invited two of the Republican candidates for presiding commissioner to debate the pros and cons of AmerenUE’s plan to build a 400 acre coal ash landfill in the Labadie Bottoms next to the Missouri River.  State Sen. John Griesheimer spoke on behalf of Ameren while Ron Keeven remained cooly opposed to the plan.  

Griesheimer is term-limited and had talked about becoming a lobbyist but then filed at the last minute for the top county job.  He has an Ameren hardhat in his office and is known as one of their big guns.

With the planning and zoning commission hearing coming up on Tuesday, July 6, the public conversation has deteriorated, and the power company is throwing around its…well, power.

They want people to think this issue just a local Labadie one, a group of naysayers with a NIMBY complex. But it’s much larger than that.  Everyone who lives downstream from the Labadie plant should be concerned.  If we’ve learned nothing else from the BP disaster in the Gulf, we should at least learn not to believe all the reassurances by dirty energy companies about their “fail safe” methods protecting our environment.

If you can get out to Union, Mo, Tuesday evening by about 5:30 p.m., come fill some seats in the East Central College auditorium.  Exit off I-44 at Union, head west on 50 and watch for the college on the left.  Ameren is going to have lots of its employees there, and you can bet their spokesmen are going to start threatening higher rates, loss of power, and other scare tactics.

Hotflash will post a report after the hearing.    

For those who want to make their opinions about the dangers of coal ash in our environment known to the EPA, here is the pertinent info.  This may seem too wonky for most readers, but it’s really a big deal that the EPA is even considering designating coal ash as hazardous waste.  What’s in a name?  “Hazardous” means a whole different list of rules will have to be followed.  

Below the fold are links to letters from our Missouri officials opposed to the new designation.

EPA announced May 4, 2010, that it is proposing to regulate for the first time coal ash to address the risks from the disposal of the wastes generated by electric utilities and independent power producers.  EPA is considering two possible options for the management of coal ash for public comment. Both options fall under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Under the first proposal, EPA would list these residuals as special wastes subject to regulation under subtitle C of RCRA, when destined for disposal in landfills or surface impoundments.Under the second proposal, EPA would regulate coal ash under subtitle D of RCRA, the section for non-hazardous wastes. The Agency considers each proposal to have its advantages and disadvantages, and includes benefits which should be considered in the public comment period. More information is available  here.   Comments on the rule can be submitted for 90 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register (will be changed with the exact dates after publication).  Comments can be submitted electronically on http://www.regulations.gov; submitted via email to rcra-docket@epa.gov,Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2009-0640; faxed to 202-566-0272;Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2009-0640; or mailed to the Hazardous Waste Management System; Identification and Listing of SpecialWastes; Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals From Electric Utilities and CERCLA Hazardous Substance Designation and Reportable Quantities Docket, Attention Docket ID No., EPA-HQ-RCRA-2009-0640, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode: 5305T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.,Washington, DC 20460.  Please include a total of two copies if sending by mail. David W. Bryan, APRPublic Affairs SpecialistOffice of Public Affairs EPA Region 7901 N. 5th Street Kansas City, KS 66101913.551.7433, Fax: 913.551.7066

Rep. Luetkemeyer

Rep. Skeleton

Lt. Gov. Kinder

MO Dept Natural Resources

MO Dept Natural Resources

We’re not number one. No, we’re number 485 and 494 out of 500. Newsweek did a year long study of the nation’s 500 largest companies and rated them according to how “green” they are. The only Missouri companies I saw on the list were Monsanto at 485 and AmerenUE at 494.

You can check out the entire list of 500 as well as the explanation of how Newsweek arrived at the rankings.

The article doesn’t go into details about the reasons for the rankings of particular companies in the list, so I don’t know specifically why Ameren would rate as one of the worst large corporations in the U.S., environmentally speaking. I suspect, though, that the recent lawsuits against Monsanto for its operations in Sauget, IL (right across the Missouri border) didn’t help its rating any.

Five lawsuits have been filed this year against Monsanto and a group of its spinoff companies by groups of cancer victims living in or within two miles of Sauget.

The legal complaint alleges that up until 1997, “more PCBs were produced at the Monsanto Facility than at any other site in the United States, and perhaps even the free world.”

(…..)

Carcinogens have been continuously released into the atmosphere from the Sauget locations since as early as 1935, the lawsuit claims.

“Defendants each knew or should have known that their conduct was causing the release of millions of tons of carcinogenic substances into the environment,” stated a 15-page complaint filed Aug. 21. The carcinogens are listed as PCBs, dioxin and furans, the byproducts of copper recycling and other industrial procedures that allowed the poisons to escape into the atmosphere or contaminate groundwater, the complaint alleged.

(…..)

The complaint involving the 32 women and one man recently filed in St. Clair County, alleges that Monsanto AG Products LLC, also called the “Monsanto defendants,” conspired with Industrial Bio-test Labs of Northbrook, Ill., “to falsely certify that the substances being released (in Sauget) were not carcinogenic, despite empirical evidence to the contrary.”

So Monsanto is number 485 out of 500, eh? Newsweek forgot to mention that its executives for these last fifty years also belong in the fourth circle of hell.

ACORN’s Wednesday protest about AmerenUE’s proposed 18 percent rate hike was unusual in the attention it attracted. When the ACORN folks get out on the sidewalk to rant about mortgage scams or banks that use bailout money to lobby against their own regulation, cars cruise silently by. Not so when it comes to the rate hike. As thirty protesters hiked up and down Chouteau Avenue in front of AmerenUE headquarters, yelling themselves hoarse:

AmerenUE

Is tryin’ to

Screw me.

and

Hell no, 18 percent!

motorists honked often, and lots of semis and trucks emitted deep, mellow blasts. You see, mortgage scams are complicated, but a rate hike–and for 18 ever lovin’ percentage points–that’s right in everybody’s face. In the middle of this recession.

And it’s on top of the $162.6 million increase Ameren got last January.

But … but … we need (or anyway want) more money, says Ameren. After two major storms knocked out power for extended periods in 2007, we had to actually start trimming trees to prevent corporate officers from being tarred and feathered if it happened again. That costs money, and we’re only making about eight percent profit a year. Maybe some folks think that since we get to be a monopoly, we should be satisfied with a little less than that, but how are we going to trim the CEO’s oriental rugs in ermine if we take less?

(Just kidding. I’m sure Thomas Voss knows that ermine would be tacky on his oriental rugs.)

But what chutzpah to ask at all in this shambles of an economy. Any kind of rate hike will drive more people to be unable to pay their Ameren bills. Many of them will end up having to get government assistance from the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance program. So? says Ameren. If poor people can’t pay, let the taxpayers take up the slack. But we need our eight percent profit.

Glenn Burleigh, the St. Louis district director of ACORN, hoots at their hardship. In what other business, he wants to know, does a company get to go back to customers after it has sold them a product and say, we’d really like to charge you more for what you already bought. We had some extra expenses that came up later. Burleigh says, and most consumers agree, that they should have been trimming those trees all along instead of trimming their costs and padding their bottom line.

AmerenUE knows, of course, that it ain’t getting an 18 percent rate hike. The company asked for an outrageous raise so that it can look reasonable when it lets itself get bargained down to something merely excessive.  Or failing that–should the public pressure be strong enough to get the PSC to rule against the utility company along about next March–the fallback plan is probably to appeal to the legislature to pass that moronic CWIP bill so it can fold this rate increase into the bill for future utility construction projects.

If it comes to that point, we’ll see if legislators are willing to put themselves on the line for AmerenUE and against the residential and corporate customers who’ll raise a stink.

One way or another, I’m sure Ameren will push hard, but the pressure from the rest of us will create a New Madrid fault. Too many of Ameren’s customers will see it like Luedale Beck:

As predicted, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the CWIP bill.

Two committee members offered amendments. The version offered by Senator John Griesheimer, R-Washington, would have simplified the bill from 24 pages to one page, but the bottom line was the same: it would have repealed the CWIP legislation the people passed by 63 percent in 1976. That was a no go. The version that was passed was written by Senator Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who actually made a few substantive changes.

The new bill, written by Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, gives the Public Service Commission more time to decide on whether or not to approve a new nuclear plant. The original bill allowed three months for the process – the new bill makes it 12 months for initial approval and another 11 months for the facility review process.

The new bill also requires the utility to obtain the necessary permits before applying for the facility review.

Big deal. On Monday, I wrote that:

The bill has been “fixed”. Sort of. Like a slovenly woman who has painted one fingernail to dress herself up.

This bill still has a runner in its stockings, a slip with torn lace peeking beneath the skirt, mismatched shoes, smeared lipstick, frizzy hair, and too much mascara. For instance:

– It would allow electric companies – not just AmerenUE, but every utility company that builds a new power plant – to get automatic rate increases every three months without having to hold hearings to justify the higher prices.

– Over the 10 years of construction for AmerenUE’s new nuclear plant, rates would increase between 29 percent and 40 percent, according to an estimate by the Missouri Public Counsel’s office, which represents utility customers before the Missouri Public Service Commission. That increase, coming during a recession and before the plant produces its first watt of electricity, could drive some businesses into bankruptcy and further depress the state economy.

And that’s just the ladder in the stockings and the slip. The P-D editorial paints the whole ugly picture and it’s worth a read.

In the 6-4 vote, two Republicans joined senators Joan Bray, D-St. Louis, and Jolie Justus, D-K.C., in voting against the bill: Senator Jim Lembke, St. Louis, and Senator Luann Ridgeway, Smithville. Tim Green, D-St. Louis, co-sponsored the bill, presumably to satisfy construction trade unions.

The committee vote is over now, but Griesheimer is unhappy on just about every count. He told Tony Messenger that “‘If this bill hits the Senate floor as it is now, it’s dead on arrival.'” Presumably, he thinks his version would have stood a better chance in the Senate than Schaefer’s. Why, I do not know. Furthermore, he and Lager are disgusted with the bill’s opponents for hitting the air with an ad during the last Mizzou game of the NCAA tournament. Griesheimer characterized the ad as having “lies and distortions”. Feel free to decide for yourself whether that’s so:

So we lost the committee vote (thanks, by the way, to Bray, Justus, Lembke, and Ridgeway), but the prospects don’t look good for passage in the full Senate. Even if it squeaks out of there, Nixon’s pen is poised. And if worse comes to worst, there’s always the possibility of another ballot initiative to stop Ameren and the other utilities from this power grab.

They may think they can arrange to deal themselves a regulatory royal flush, but we’re not playing poker with them. We’re playing bridge–and holding the high trump cards.

AmerenUE, of course, knew it could count on its “regulator” at the Public Service Commission, Chairman Jeff Davis, to support its exorbitant plan to undo the anti-CWIP legislation we voters passed in 1976 and enable the utility company to force ratepayers to buy another nuclear plant. Oh sure, Ameren has been pretending that the plans for a new plant are still not settled, but the Post-Dispatch wasn’t falling for that hooey:

This editorial is just a place holder. We haven’t decided yet whether to write about one of the biggest issues facing Missouri legislators this year.

Our colleague Tony Messenger did. In a column published Tuesday, Mr. Messenger wrote that executives from utility giant AmerenUE danced around the “gorilla in the room” when they briefed lawmakers on energy issues.

That gorilla would be a new nuclear reactor the utility applied to build in Callaway County. Strictly as an option, of course.

(….)

AmerenUE executives and the Public Service Commission don’t even want to discuss alternative ways to pay for the plant, assuming there is a plant and assuming the commission still is interested in public service, which we very much doubt.

Nor did Ameren have much trouble enlisting union support, with all those juicy construction contracts that it could promise would last for a decade or so. (Too bad that labor and environmentalists find themselves pitted against one another on this issue.)

Besides lining up the PSC and the construction unions, Ameren, having shared lots of shekels with Republican candidates last year, was set to come out, guns blazing. As is usual with this kind of ambush, timing is everything. The trick is to do it right after an election, when the representatives that carry your water for you are furthest away from having to answer for their chicanery.

And then scare everybody: We won’t have enough power! Don’t you see the sky collapsing in shards around your shoulders? Missouri is in terrible shape.  In fact, how’s this for scary?

Department of Energy statistics show that in all three categories of rates — residential, business and industrial — Missouri ranks in the bottom 10 nationally. And over the past eight years, Missouri is one of only three states to show a decline in rates.

“During that period we were dead last out of 50 states,” Wood said.

Ah me and alas. Here we are at the bottom of the heap again. Low rates are a problem we must solve immediately–though it does strike me that raising rates to benefit a corporation that made a ten percent profit last year is an eccentric way to behave in hard economic times.

It’s especially eccentric to do so when you consider–as Jackie Hutchinson of the Human Development Corporation pointed at the forum Monday night about Ameren’s campaign–that St. Louis has 162,000 low income families. Such people pay about 40 percent of their income for utilities–no, you didn’t read it wrong: 40 percent–whereas people at the median income level pay only 6 percent of their incomes for utilities. Even a three percent rise in utility rates would hit poor families like a Louisville Slugger.

Another tactic the nuclear proponents are using is to point out that a nuclear facility is cleaner than coal. Lobbyist Irl Scissors, who worked last year on the ballot proposition to require electrical utility companies to get at least 15 percent of their power from alternative energy sources by 2021, has switched sides. And that’s his claim, that he favors the idea of a new plant because it’s cleaner than coal.

Maybe. Depends on how you define clean. I don’t call a process that creates radioactive waste we can’t safely dispose of clean. Yes, nuclear power leaves less of a carbon footprint than coal does, but it does leave one. Both those sources of power convert only a third of what they burn to electricity. The other two thirds goes up in smoke, added to the environment.

So I wonder why–in fact, I wonder why the hell–are we looking at more nuclear power instead of at more wind and solar? Indeed, why aren’t we also looking at just being more efficient? I’m not even talking about conserving, using less–which would make sense too–but about efficiencies like weatherizing buildings and installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use a fourth as much electricity as incandescent bulbs do.  My take on the issue? We don’t need no stinkin’ plant.

But perhaps it’s impertinent of me to be questioning the wisdom of Jeff Davis at the PSC. Understanding these issues is his job.

The PSC chairman said he would support legislation to [make ratepayers ante up ahead of time] only if it included adequate consumer protections and preserved the commission’s authority to disallow costs.

Surely when legislators replace the 1976 law, which was fifty words long, with a 24 page legal tome, there’s room as wide as Delaware for “adequate consumer protections”. Or room as wide as Tennessee for adequate Ameren protections. Hmm.

So here’s how it stands: Republicans, with the backing of the PSC and labor unions, want to shove this travesty through the legislature. What will Nixon do? He is not opposed to more nuclear power, but he is opposed to ratepayers shelling out up front and then watching the shareholders take the resulting profits. Environmentalists oppose the whole package and will attend the hearing on the Senate bill next Tuesday (which I hope to cover).

Lines have been drawn. As this controversy heats up, much will depend on how vociferous Missouri consumers are about the proposed ripoff.