Florida Power Cos. Hit With Nuclear Power Rates Class Action

The two largest power companies in Florida – Duke Energy Florida LLC and Florida Power & Light Company – are accused of increasing utility rates for consumers to pay for failed nuclear projects in a recently filed class action lawsuit.

“Customers of Duke Energy. . . and Florida Power and Light Company. . . have been required to pay $2 billion in their electric bills for nuclear power plant projects, most of which will never generate any electricity or any other benefit for ratepayers,” the class action alleges.

The Florida nuclear power rate class action lawsuit states that the companies were allowed to charge higher rates under a state law designed to encourage new nuclear power plants, which created the “Nuclear Cost Recovery System.”

Under that system, utility companies are permitted to recoup construction costs for nuclear power plants, even before those plants are fully built and operational. Not only are utility companies allowed to recover costs, they can choose to spread out the rate increase and charge interest on it in the meantime.

“Either way, the interest charged ratepayers is added as ‘carrying charges’ to the next year’s nuclear cost request,” the class action asserts. “Not only are ratepayers being charged interest on their own money, they are charged interest on the interest on their own money.”

The Florida nuclear power rate class action lawsuit claims that the Nuclear Cost Recovery System violates federal law. First, the complaint alleges, it provides an unfair advantage to in-state utility companies, and to nuclear power companies in particular. Second, it intrudes on nuclear power regulation, which has always been controlled by federal regulation, according to the lawsuit. In particular, the complaint compares the Florida law to the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, and argues that they conflict with each other in several key areas.

Plaintiff William Newton of Clearwater, Florida, says he’s been a customer of Duke Energy since October 2009. Plaintiff Noreen Allison declares that she is a resident of Naples, Florida, and has been a customer of Florida Power and Light since 1991. Together, both Newton and Allison claim that they have paid “unlawful charges” to the defendant utility companies under the flawed Florida nuclear power rate laws.

Newton and Allison seek to represent a Class of all persons “who are or have been customers of Duke Energy Florida or Florida Power and Light from November 12, 2008, through the present.” The class action requests that the court stops enforcement of Florida’s Nuclear Cost Recovery System, and helps recover the more than $2 billion those customers have paid for failed or abandoned nuclear power projects.

Plaintiffs William B. Newton and Noreen Allison are represented by Paul J. Geller and Jack Reise of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLC, and Steve W. Berman, Barbara Mahoney, and Jerrod C. Patterson of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.

The Florida Nuclear Power Rates Class Action Lawsuit is William B. Newton, et al. v. Duke Energy Florida LLC, et al., Case No. 0:16-cv-60341, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.