HOYLMAN DEMANDS PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION EXTEND PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD FOR UPSTATE NUCLEAR PLANT BAILOUT

Hoylman: If the PSC expects ratepayers to prop-up failing nuclear power plants, it shouldn’t just pay lip service to public input.”

NEW YORK – State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), the Ranking Member of the Environmental Conservation Committee, released the following statement today urging the Public Service Commission (PSC) to extend the public comment period for its plan to provide upstate nuclear power plants with public subsidies from 14 to 45 days (case number 15-E-0302). Under its current proposal the PSC would provide three upstate nuclear power plants with almost $1 billion in ratepayer-backed subsidies over the next two years to keep the plants operating, with the possibility of billions more over the next 12 years.

“Fourteen days for a public comment period is ridiculously short -- especially considering what’s at stake here. New Yorkers deserve more than two weeks in the doldrums of July to weigh in on what would amount to a multi-billion dollar, lengthy bailout of the nuclear power industry. I demand that the Public Service Commission extend the public comment period to at least 45 days for this proposal to subsidize upstate nuclear power plants to the tune of nearly a billion dollars over the next two years.

“If the PSC expects ratepayers to prop-up failing nuclear power plants, it shouldn’t just pay lip service to public input. Other public comment periods are much longer for far more trivial subjects. New Yorkers were given 45 days to submit public comments on how lottery winnings are distributed. Surely our ratepayers deserve at least as much time for a bailout they'll be subsidizing.”