Day 23 - Minority Report

The House debated SB 31 for about 3 1/2 hours today. This is the bill we've reported on several times already, which would do an end run around the Public Service Commission (PSC) and allow Georgia Power to charge us, its individual customers, in advance, for the planned construction of a nuclear plant.

How ever one feels about nuclear power, this bill was terrible for consumers.

The main argument of those who supported the bill was that it would save consumers a huge rate hike in the future by allowing Georgia Power to charge us a little bit at a time so that we wouldn't have to pay interest on interest later. This was nonsense.

Rather than demonstrating that with bits of the back-and-forth debate, we'll instead give you the Minority Report.

It's rarely used, but if something about to pass is egregious enough, a legislator can call for a Minority Report. This allows, at the end of debate, for an important group to speak. Those members of the committee that sent the bill on to the full Senate who voted against the bill when it was in that committee - in other words those who were on the losing side when the bill was voted out of committee - are allowed 20 minutes to speak about why they opposed the bill, and their report is printed up and given to all Senators.

Democrats Brian Thomas and Dubose Porter gave the Minority Report.

Thomas dismantled the arguments of the bill's supporters with the skill and precision of the archaeologist that he is. (Yes, he really is an archaeologist - pretty cool.)

First, he crushed the argument that this plan will save consumers money. Of the money that we would have added to our Georgia Power bills in fees that's supposedly going to prevent us from paying interest on interest:
Only 25% - $500 million - is going towards that goal of paying as we go so that we don't pay interest on interest later on.
50% - $1.1 million - is going straight to Georgia Power as profit. (They call it "return on equity".)
25% - $500 million - would go to paying taxes on that profit.
So, rather than saving us money, 75% of the extra fees we're charged will go towards Georgia Power making bigger profits.

Second, he said that this was not a referendum on nuclear power. The PSC will decide on construction of nuclear plants March 17 at its next meeting.

Third, he pointed out that it's not a referendum on jobs in Augusta. Those jobs will arrive if and when a nuclear plant is built there, which has nothing to do with this bill.

This bill was only about how Georgia Power gets its money.

Dubose Porter informed younger members that when a scheme like this passed through the Georgia Legislature many years ago, it became known as the "Retirement Bill," because so many members lost their seats for voting for it.

Of course, this valiant effort didn't take the day.
The converts to the church of Georgia Power ignored the many unanswered questions, and didn't seem to think it mattered if we had to fight to get them answered later. Apparently their votes were lined up in advance.

The bill passed 107-66, with about 20 Republicans voting against it and about 20 Democrats voting for it.

With so many people and groups opposing it, it's a tough loss to take, because legislators admitted that they had gotten very few to zero calls in favor from constituents. That's not the way things are supposed to work.