Front Page  »  

PG&E to pay local agencies more for Diablo Canyon closure

November 29, 2016

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power PlantPG&E has upped its financial settlement offer, proposing to dole out $85 million, rather than $49.5 million, to compensate local government agencies that stand to lose tax revenue as a result of the planned closure of Diablo Canyon power plant.

In June, after announcing its plan to shut down Diablo Canyon’s two reactors in 2024 and 2025, PG&E offered to pay SLO County agencies a cumulative total of $49.5 million over a nine-year period. Six of SLO County’s seven cities then protested, arguing in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that PG&E’s offer did not adequately mitigate the economic impact of the nuclear plant closing.

Grover Beach was the lone city in the county that did not participate in the protest. The holdout may have been due to Grover Beach’s somewhat awkward position of having a popularly elected mayor, John Shoals, who works a day job as a PG&E government relations representative.

On Monday, PG&E appeared to have satisfied the six protesting cities by unveiling the utility’s new settlement proposal. Also, Grover Beach is expected to receive some settlement funds, which would be funnelled through the county government.

In all, the settlement proposal would amount to $122.5 million to $147.5 million over a span of 15 to 25 years. That total includes $10 million that would go to an economic development fund.

Also included in the offer, PG&E is committing to contribute tens of millions of dollars, possibly as much as $62.5 million, toward emergency planning over the course of the full decommissioning of Diablo Canyon’s two reactors and the transfer of spent fuel to dry casks. The process could take up to 25 years.

Under the new proposal, PG&E plans to compensate local government agencies in the following manner:

San Luis Coastal Unified School District: $36.8 million

San Luis Obispo County: $3.84 million

San Luis Obispo: $1.82 million

Paso Robles: $1.15 million

Atascadero: $783,106

Pismo Beach: $767,028

Arroyo Grande: $747,422

Morro Bay: $497,472

San Luis Coastal is the agency hit hardest by the expected closure of Diablo Canyon. The power plant property taxes generate about $9.5 million annually for San Luis Coastal, or about 11 percent of the district’s total revenue.

SLO County receives the second most revenue from Diablo Canyon property taxes. PG&E pays about $8 million a year in property taxes to the county, which accounts for less than 2 percent of the county’s budget.

Though PG&E’s nuclear reactor licenses are due to expire in 2024 and 2025, the utility must still obtain regulatory approval for the closure of the power plant. The PUC is expected to hold a hearing next year on PG&E’s proposed settlement.


Loading...
Subjects:                         
Related:


31 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

This bonus from the PGE ratepayers, yes, PGE has no money its income comes from the ratepayers, you and me, will be enough to payoff all the delinquent Government pension plans in the County if we are not overseeing these corrupt agencies. CalSTRS (teachers) and CALPERS (state workers) have an unfunded liability of $64 Billion in California and this is the State’s portion not the local agencies. Every City, Special District, School District in this County owes millions of dollars in their unfunded retirement plans. Every citizen in this County should hold these agencies accountable for 100% for every penny spent. This money should be invested and reserved for the future budgets that will be impacted after the scared cow closes and their ratepayer money will be asked to fill the financial gaps. DO NOT SPEND THE MONEY AS A GIFT AND THEN COME ASK US FOR MORE BECAUSE YOU DID NOT DO YOU JOB PROPERLY!


0

I’d like to start a class action lawsuit to get a refund from my current property taxes. Since PG&E has graciously decided to give the San Luis Coastal Unified School District $36.8 million, they clearly do not need so much from my property taxes. I’d like that reduced ASAP please.


lol


0

Once the money is spent… then what? Hmmmmmm….. can you say “taxes”?


0

A very sneaky way of raising our taxes…


0

Shrink government at all levels.


0

Remember folks the money for this grand giveaway will come from the ratepayers. It is your money that PG&E will be giving away to these government agencies to waste on projects that most of us would object to anyway. Why not just have these government agencies cut back, reduce the fat, and have PG&E return the $85 million to the ratepayers.


0

Can’t do that, that would require the government and its agencies to do something they refuse to do, live within their means, and cut waste, salaries and benefits.


0

It will be interesting to see what is actually done with the money. My guess is that most of it will go to the bureaucracy of government to figure out how to spend it. While $700,000 + is a lot of money to most of us government will devour this quickly and there will no noticeable affect on any of the local economies. We the rate payer paid into this and maybe a reduction in the rates that will be going up would have been more appropriate.

But the bottom line is why does PG&E owe anything to anybody? Is this going to set the benchmark that when a local large business decides to quit that they are going to be extorted by the government to cover their losses?


0

well lets be accurate about this, ratepayers agree to pay more (extortion) monies to towns who don’t want the plant, just the benjamins.


0

OK, let’s be accurate.

The many communities and agencies that openly protested and complained about PG&E building and running this plant since the very beginning are having to face the reality that now $1billion dollars of tax money is not going to be flowing into the county coffers.

All those union teachers spouting anti Diablo rhetoric in their class rooms for 30 years has paid off, as those students are now the voters who have said shut it down. All those protests costing us taxpayers over the years and now today those short sighted liberals protests have paid off. You get what you sow…


0

Does anyone else see the humor in PG&E rate payers paying the Mob Bosses in the local Governments money to shut down a facility. Heck…why not make it $200 Million, it’s not their money anyway! This shows the scam being played folks.


0

I have wondered what the “rationale” was for PG&E “owing” SLO County (or other gov’t entities) anything for not creating as much taxable income in the future. It seems to defy any sort of reasonable justification. The only possible one I can think of it that some permitting process way back included such a provision. Does anyone know what the “official” explanation is?


0
1 2 3