By The Arrowflinger
In 2010, Georgia House District 117 Representative Lee Anderson was getting calls from constituents with concerns about the upcoming House vote on Senate Bill 31, the infamous law that delighted more than seventy Southern Company lobbyists by giving the company’s Georgia Power Company over $1 billion in advance profits and a guaranteed 11% return on nuclear plant Units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle generating complex near Waynesboro. Famous consumer advocate Clark Howard begged Lee and the rest of the legislators to vote no, and he did so repeatedly.
Seventy Lobbyists? With Lee it was the 71st lobbyist, his Southern Company-employed daughter, who mattered more than the folks back home.
Anderson of the 117th voted AYE.
These days, Lee is campaigning for the vacated Georgia Senate District 24 seat, waving his phone, promising voters that he will answer the phone and call them back. He isn’t saying when. He called this constituent after his vote for SB 31.
Now where are we? Unit 3 was to have begun operation last month, but recent updates have the unit only 26% complete with a $900 million cost overrun, to be paid by ratepayers when Georgia Power gets its way after the May elections.
Contractors have been paid out to the 60% completion level, despite the unit being only 26% complete. This is the tight construction cost control the 70 lobbyists touted?
Clark Howard was right, but Lee Anderson’s 71st lobbyist home economics were the sizzle in the bacon for House District 117 residents, who got $109 a year higher invoices.
He isn’t much good at writing bills, but is wonderful at raising them.
After Lee Anderson blew off Clark Howard, how are you going to pay your power bill, and what is that hay farmer going to toss in next?
(Editor’s Note: The above clips are included here under the terms of FAIR USE for journalistic and educational purposes. As part of the public record, this material is not available through non-archive means, and is hereby presented for the public good.)
I guess they could point to the repeal of sodomy laws as some justification for this behavior.
The original Bastiat defined it as “Legal Plunder.” He wrote
“As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose–that it may violate property instead of protecting it–then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.”
There should’ve been no exemptions, but unfortunately, that is also water under the bridge. Since the Democrats have all but killed coal, including my coal holdings, nuclear is the way to go. All of the Legislators are in the same boat with us — they are pre-paying, just like us. Unit 3 & 4 construction is providing jobs. And on the flip-side, GA Power has gone to the PSC and requested rate reductions, based upon lower costs for oil and natural gas for power generation.
There is also this thing called solar, which hundreds of utility companies have gone to, even though it’s harder to monopolize the sun. Unlike coal, a nice feature of it is that it doesn’t result in many premature deaths. Also has a much lower carbon footprint. Of course as long as we subsidize the coal companies with free pollution, the costs are dirt(y) cheap.