Please send the following letter to protest the bailout requested by FirstEnergy:
DATE
President Donald J. Trump
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 37188
Honorable Rick Perry, Secretary
Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, DC 20585
Dear President Trump/Secretary Perry
I purchase electricity through the PJM Interconnection. I am writing to ask that you reject FirstEnergy’s subsidiary First Energy Solution’s (FES) request under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act for a declaration of emergency. There is no emergency. As PJM has made clear: “Nothing we have seen to date indicates that an emergency would result from the [FirstEnergy] generator retirements.”
Granting FirstEnergy’s request would be very disruptive to competitive markets and on that basis alone should be rejected.
FirstEnergy has a long track record of bad management decisions that have resulted in its ratepayers having to pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. To grant this request would be another ratepayer bailout for bad management. Beginning in the 1970s with the decision to build 9 nuclear units, FirstEnergy management has made a series of bad decisions. The mismanagement of the construction of the Perry I and Beaver Valley II nuclear units resulted in $9 billion in cost overruns. Most of these costs were passed on to ratepayers in the 1980s even though these units represented excess capacity in the FirstEnergy generation portfolio. Only high rates and billions of dollars in “stranded cost” recovery in the form of a “competitive transition charge” have likely kept First Energy Solutions from declaring bankruptcy a long time ago.
In addition, FirstEnergy has used a second phony argument for claiming it deserves a bailout. It claims it is not receiving sufficient compensation for the “unique benefits” that its nuclear units provide. FirstEnergy has been attempting to get the Ohio and Pennsylvania legislatures to give it a bailout in the form of “Zero Emissions Credits”, another ratepayer charge. However, despite the myth that nuclear plants are a clean source of energy, the fact is they routinely vent some of the deadliest gases known to exist. And, the process to make commercial grade fuel for nuclear plants contributes to Climate Change.
Mr. President/Secretary, enough is enough. I urge you to do the right thing on behalf of the millions of ratepayers, not only in the FirstEnergy service territory, but throughout the PJM Interconnection: put an end to this history of gouging ratepayers to cover inept management.
[Your name & address]