Utility’s mistakes might be ours to pay
Ratepayers in Georgia paid in advance for Georgia Power’s multibillion-dollar gamble on two new nuclear reactors at plant Vogtle. We were told at the time that it was in our best interest to pay up front. But much of the money we paid up front actually was realized as profit for shareholders. Maybe that helps explain why Southern Company’s stock price has risen about 60 percent since work began in 2009.
In December of last year, the Public Service Commission decided that ratepayers should pay for almost all of the accumulated overages. Those overcharges amounted to billions of dollars. And now, the entire project might be scrapped. The PSC’s Tim Echols jumps into action. According to Echols, someone other than Georgia Power should pay for Georgia Power’s mistakes. Ratepayers should never have had to pay for this fiasco. Maybe Echols finally realizes this. So now he’s begging for a bailout from our federal government.
DON MCADAM, SANDY SPRINGS
Trump wishes to be a wartime president
I read with interest Jay Bookman’s “Iran deal is just like health care,” Opinion, April 23. In this column, Bookman described how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson changed his position on the Iran nuclear deal. In his report to Congress, Secretary Tillerson stated the Iran nuclear deal is “working as designed.” Later he changed this assessment to better reflect President Trump’s position. Bookman compared this to what he termed ‘the Obamacare Conundrum,’ to admit that the Iran nuclear deal is working is to give President Obama credit for getting it right.
Drawing a hard line with Iran, Syria, and North Korea, the administration buys time to wait for some slip-up by one of these three sovereign nations. I can’t help but feel that President Trump wishes to be a wartime president. If only he could get his Gulf of Tonkin incident.
DAVE FEDACK, DOUGLASVILLE
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