Press Release

March 30, 2018

ELPC Asks Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Protect Consumers and Taxpayers from FirstEnergy Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Cost Bailout

ELPC Asks Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Protect Consumers and Taxpayers from FirstEnergy Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Cost Bailout. A Review of Decommissioning Funds Reported by FirstEnergy Indicates Significant Shortfalls, Signaling the Need for Federal Investigation, Strong Action.

The Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) filed a petition with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to affirm FirstEnergy’s legal responsibility as parent company guarantor to demonstrate that it can pay the costs of decommissioning the Beaver Valley 1 & 2, Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants, which have shortfalls in their decommissioning trust funds.

“As FirstEnergy is financially stressed and its FirstEnergy Solutions subsidiary verges on bankruptcy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must require these companies to demonstrate financial assurances that they can and will pay for the full costs of decommissioning and cleaning up their nuclear plants,” said Howard Learner, Executive Director of ELPC. “Let’s not risk another taxpayer bailout with FirstEnergy’s management leaving the public holding the bag for the necessary decommissioning costs.”

Decommissioning Funding Status Reports filed by FirstEnergy Solutions show hundreds of millions of dollars in shortfalls in the nuclear decommissioning trust funds for these nuclear plants.  FirstEnergy has not recently paid into those funds. The Callan Institute’s 2017 Nuclear Decommissioning Funding Study found that FirstEnergy has a $2.75 billion shortfall for its nuclear plants’ trust funds.

“FirstEnergy is required to set aside enough money to pay for decommissioning costs in order to protect the public from situations exactly like this one,” said Learner.

ELPC filed the petition with the NRC on March 27, 2018. The petition can be downloaded at: ELPC NRC Petition Re: FirstEnergy.