Parties disputing the $4.7 billion settlement for the premature closing of California’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) have not shown that the substantive terms of the deal are unreasonable, plant majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE) argued Thursday.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has reopened the settlement case, which dictates that state ratepayers shoulder $3.3 billion of the cost, while SCE parent Edison International and SONGS minority owner San Diego Gas & Electric pay the rest. CPUC reopened the case in light of ex parte communications between former commission President Michael Peevey and former SCE executive Stephen Pickett during a secret meeting in Poland in 2013. CPUC subsequently fined SCE $17 million over that matter.
“We continue to believe the transparency of this process will allow interested parties to review the settlement and confirm for themselves that it should stand,” SCE President Ron Nichols said in a statement Thursday, the deadline to file reply briefs in the case with CPUC after opening briefs were filed earlier this month.
Southern California Edison has blamed Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi for providing “faulty” replacement steam generators that failed and proved too expensive to fix, leading the utility to permamently shutter SONGS in 2013. SCE is suing the company for $7.6 billion. Half of any net proceeds recovered from the lawsuit would be returned to customers.
“Our shareholders, and not customers, are paying for the faulty steam generators from the day they were no longer providing power,” Nichols stated in the release. “The portion of residential customers’ bills attributable to San Onofre — currently about $2 per month — doesn’t cover the cost of the faulty steam generators, but instead pays for other reasonable investments in a plant that provided safe, reliable, low-cost power for nearly 30 years.”
Attorney Michael Aguirre, who is representing consumer advocates in the case, did not file a reply brief. In his opening brief, he argued that the meeting in Poland calls into question the viability of the settlement.
“Before the PUC can take any corrective steps on San Onofre, the circle of officials who knew about the secret San Onofre deal … have to step away,” attorney Michael Aguirre told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
