By John Stang
Two California activist organizations are feuding over their legal standings in a proposed settlement agreement that would trim charges to ratepayers for the premature closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
The stakes include legal fees and possible input in future discussions on the agreement reached in late January between the San Diego County nuclear plant’s owners and several consumer organizations.
On March 22, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) told San Diego-based Public Watchdogs it can legally contest $5.4 million in legal fees from the utilities and mostly earmarked for the attorneys representing another watchdog, El Cajon-based Citizens’ Oversight, and private citizen Ruth Henricks. Public Watchdogs alleges Citizens’ Oversight reached a backroom deal earlier this year with SONGS’ owners that will shortchange ratepayers.
Public Watchdogs was not a formal party in the settlement agreement, which still must be approved by CPUC.
On April 3, the attorneys for Citizens’ Oversight and Henricks — law partners Maria Severson and Michael Aguirre of San Diego — filed a request for CPUC to reverse the March 22 ruling. The lawyers characterized Public Watchdogs as a Johnny-come-lately to the settlement agreement that has piggybacked on the efforts of others.
Utilities Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) jointly own the three San Onofre reactors. The first shut down in 1992 and the other two were permanently taken offline in 2013 due to faulty steam generators.
In 2014, CPUC authorized a $4.7 billion settlement that would have required ratepayers to pay $3.3 billion of the costs for the plant’s closure. The agreement – worked out by the utilities, the state Office of Ratepayer Advocates, and several nongovernmental groups – that year drew a lawsuit from Aguirre, representing Citizens’ Oversight and Henricks.
The commission later invalidated the settlement after it was found that senior officials from Southern California Edison and CPUC had conducted ex-parte talks on the matter before the deal was finalized. The replacement settlement would cut about $775 million from the $3.3 billion charge to ratepayers. Public Watchdogs argued that falls $2 billion short of what ratepayers are entitled to in reimbursements.
In a telephone interview, Public Watchdogs Executive Director Charles Langley said Severson and Aguirre should not have settled for anything less than the utilities refunding the full costs of the nuclear reactors’ closure. “It’s a complete rip-off because ratepayers shouldn’t have to pay for failed nuclear reactors,” Langley said.
The five-person panel has scheduled an April 27 deadline for filing testimony, followed by a public hearing is set for May 2 in Laguna Niguel. A status conference will be held in May.
Evidentiary hearings are set for May 23 and May 24. The deadline for follow-up briefs is June 15. Reply briefs have a deadline of June 22. No times have been set yet for oral arguments and CPUC’s final decision. The lawsuit formally ends when that decision is made.
Prior to March 22, Public Watchdogs submitted a brief to CPUC to argue that since all formal parties agreed to the proposed settlement agreement, a new formal party is needed to take the adversarial position in the commission review. The commission rejected Public Watchdogs’ request to be a formal party on most of the settlement agreement issues.
“Public Watchdogs chose not to seek party status until a new settlement was presented, and it also chose to rely on other parties to advocate its position in the proceeding. These other parties have no obligation to Public Watchdogs when making determinations as to whether or not their clients choose to enter into a settlement to be presented to the Commission,” CPUC’s ruling said.
However, CPUC said Public Watchdogs provided a unique argument on a previously unconsidered issue — and allowed the organization to be a formal party in contesting one matter. The group’s position is that since SCE and SDG&E are paying $5.4 million in legal fees to Aguirre and Severson, the pair has a potential conflict-of-interest in making sure the current settlement agreement is adopted.
As an intervenor, Public Watchdogs will be allowed to participate on a limited basis on that question. It can still submit public comments on all other facets of the settlement agreement but won’t be involved in oral arguments.
On April 3, Severson and Aguirre asked the commission to reverse its ruling on Public Watchdogs, saying CPUC routinely denies similar requests to become party to a settlement this late in the process.
“The CPUC decision allowing Public Watchdogs to be a party is not to determine the fairness of the settlement, but rather, a thinly veiled attempt to attack an issue not before the CPUC. There is no legal authority for the CPUC to allow a challenge to an agreement in which neither the CPUC nor Public Watchdogs are parties,” the lawyers wrote in their motion.
Reached by phone, Aguirre declined to discuss this particular issue in detail, saying his firm did the heavy lifting while Public Watchdogs is a “paper organization” that did little actual legal work. ”They’re hitchhiking on the hard work that we did,” Aguirre said.
Langley replied: “I was with Mike Aguirre every day for years in this issue.”
SONGS’ owners otherwise remain focused on decommissioning San Onofre and finding a permanent solution for its spent fuel. Southern California Edison in 2016 hired an AECOM-EnergySolutions team as the $1 billion general contractor for what is expected to be a $4.4 billion decommissioning project lasting over a decade.