State Reps. Dwight Dudley and Carl Zimmerman, both from Pinellas County, are looking to stop a proposed agreement with Duke Energy that would have customers pay $3.2 billion for nuclear power they will never get.
Dudley, a Democrat from St. Petersburg, will join Zimmerman, a fellow Democrat from Dunedin, in a protest outside of Duke’s headquarters in downtown St. Pete 11 a.m. Saturday, according to Ivan Penn in the Tampa Bay Times. It will be the second protest in the past few weeks that oppose the agreement scheduled for consideration by state regulators October 16.
“The pitchforks and torches are coming out,” Dudley told the Times. The demonstrations are called “STOP DUKE RIP OFF.”
The Office of Public Counsel, which represents consumers before the Florida Public Service Commission, agreed to a settlement with Duke over expenses of the failed upgrade to the now-closed Crystal River nuclear plant. It was in addition to $1.5 billion in spending on the abandoned Levy County nuclear project.
Money spent on the two unsuccessful ventures came from the Advanced Nuclear Cost Recovery law (ANCR) allowing utilities to charge customers (in advance) for adding power from either existing nuclear facilities or developing new plants.
Dudley ran his campaign mostly on repealing ANCR and has become part of a growing chorus of legislative voices calling for the repeal or amendment of the law.
