The California Public Utilities Commission must direct Southern California Edison to stop collecting ratepayer revenue in the settlement for the early closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, consumer attorneys said in a new filing Monday.
The commission in May 2016 reopened the 2014 settlement, under which ratepayers would pay $3.3 billion of the closure costs for the plant’s premature shutdown in 2013. That came after it was found that then-CPUC President Michael Peevey had conducted ex parte communications on the matter with an executive for SONGS’ majority owner Southern California Edison in 2013.
Southern California Edison blames the shutdown on faulty steam generators supplied by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). The utility and SONGS’ co-owners San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside in March won a $125 million decision against MHI from the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration. However, the court found that the steam generators’ manufacturer had not defrauded SONGS’ owners.
But the CPUC settlement leaned hard on Southern California Edison’s then-pending fraud claim and expectation that it would receive billions of dollars from MHI, according to the motion filed Monday with the commission by the watchdog group Citizens Oversight and attorneys Michael Aguirre and Maria Severson, representing ratepayer Ruth Henricks.
“The recent arbitration tribunal’s decision reflects SCE’s admissions that its decisions to proceed with the design were taken in spite of what was then known by SCE,” the lawyers wrote. “Accordingly, allowing further years of collection until a decision is made as to the propriety of charging ratepayers is patently unreasonable.”
The attorneys also called for the California Public Utilities Commission to halt filing or approval of further “advice letters” from Southern California Edison with the intent of recovering additional revenue for SONGS.
Southern California Edison spokeswoman Maureen Brown on Monday characterized the motion as “a premature attempt to ask the CPUC to invalidate the settlement. The settlement agreement remains in place, and the amounts being collected are consistent with that settlement.”
Mediation in the attorneys’ lawsuit against the settlement started last week and is due to wrap up before the end of June, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Meanwhile, SONGS’ owners and other parties to the settlement – including the state Office of Ratepayer Advocates, Henricks, and a host of nongovernmental organizations – are continuing the CPUC-ordered “meet and confer” process to consider potential changes to the settlement. If the parties cannot reach agreement by Aug. 15, the commission will determine next steps, Brown said.
The SCE spokeswoman noted that the new motion before the commission is distinct from the question of SONGS’ decommissioning trust fund. The trust fund, which has a current $4.2 billion balance, will fund the anticipated $4.4 billion cleanup of the property in San Diego County. Southern California Edison in December selected a team of AECOM and EnergySolutions as general contractor for the decommissioning.
Aguirre and Severson’s law firm is also representing the plaintiffs in a lawsuit to block a state permit that allows storage of additional nuclear waste from SONGS near the Pacific Coast. That lawsuit is now in mediation.
