House Considers Rate Cap On PSNH Mercury Scrubber

Hopkinton Democrat Christine Hamm told committee members Thursday that she supports cutting mercury emissions at PSNH’s Bow Power plant.

A law passed 3 years ago mandated those reductions at the plant.

But Representative Hamm says things have changed since then.

And she’s not sure that installing a new mercury scrubber makes sense when its cost rose from 250 million dollars in 2006 to an estimated 457 million dollars this year.

With no cap on costs, we have to wonder, at what point do we reach our limit? How much is too much to spend to rehabilitate a 40 year old coal plant at the end of its lifespan? Is nearly half a billion dollars the best use of ratepayer money to produce 430 megawatts of electricity?

Other lawmakers also spoke out against the project’s high estimated cost.

Goffstown Republican Randolph “Rip” Holden said he couldn’t support a project that had become so expensive.

…to pass on, …..a cost that has escalated nearly doubled from the original, 450 million dollars to ask the ratepayers to pay for that is very difficult or a bitter pill for me to swallow.

Environmental activists agreed that the new cost estimate was too high.

Mellissa Hoffer heads the New Hampshire chapter of the Conservation Law Foundation.

She predicts new federal regulations could require utilities to achieve even greater mercury reductions than the 80 percent the scrubber would achieve.

And she testified the Obama administration might force PSNH to install other costly equipment to cut pollution, or improve the health of the Merrimack River.

Hoffer said for these reasons, she’d like to see the scrubber project delayed.

… And I think that does mean doing some kind of a study, like has been proposed in the senate bill that gives us a chance to figure out what are the true costs in a transparent way that we can all look at. What are the true future costs for running this plant for x number of years?

PSNH officials said they didn’t think it would be a good idea to delay the project.

But company officials said they were more troubled by the House bill itself, which would cap their cost recovery at just 250 million dollars.

PSNH executive Terry Large said if the bill became law, it would force the company to take a large financial loss.

If we’re looking at an actual cost of 457 million dollars and the cost of this project were capped at 250 million dollars that would…require psnh to go without earning a penny to pay for those costs for 5, 6, 7 years.

Dozens of trade unionists showed up to the hearing to support the company’s position.

They came because a full blown scrubber project promises construction jobs for as long as three years.

Ed Foley heads the New Hampshire Building Trades Council.

I estimate 500 jobs for my brothers and sisters that will keep them and their members, their families in good pay and wages.

And after the construction is done, PSNH has said the scrubber would also lead to 5 or 6 permanent jobs at the Bow plant.

Jobs aside, one lawmaker told committee members she thought the bill to cap PSNH cost recovery had a big problem.

It is so unconstitutional, it will be the lawyer full employment act.

That’s Bow Democrat Mary Beth Walz. who is also an attorney.

Walz said forcing PSNH to install scrubbers to reduce mercury and then not paying the company for the cost is equivalent to taking its property.

The fifth and fourteenth amendment of the constitution require that you not have a taking of property without due process. And the fifth amendment of the constitution requires that you cannot have a taking without just compensation. And that’s exactly what this bill does.

PSNH began preliminary work on the project last fall.

In fact, one company official said they’d already spent nearly 250 million dollars to get it going.