Reactor project revival possible

Key members of the Missouri House and Senate believe AmerenUE could try next year to repeal a law blocking its plan to build a second nuclear power plant in Callaway County.

AmerenUE suspended the project after it became clear that the Senate would not be repealing the Construction Work in Progress law during the session that ends in mid-May. CWIP bars utilities from passing on the financing costs of new power plants to ratepayers before it begins generating electricity.

The bill to repeal CWIP passed the House and then ran into boisterous opposition from big businesses, consumer groups and some environmental organizations.

Some Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate seemed poised to filibuster the legislation, a parliamentary move where lawmakers block a vote through endless talking.

Ameren CEO Thomas Voss said, “The current version of the bill being debated in the Senate strips the legislation of the very provisions we needed most to move forward.”

But some lawmakers – including House Speaker Ron Richard, R-Joplin – said there could be a chance next year to pursue a repeal of CWIP.

Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Columbia Republican who played a big role in writing a revised version of the House-passed bill, said the opposing sides of the issue were too far apart to reach a compromise. While it’s possible to use the time between legislative sessions to reach a consensus, both sides of the debate will have to be prepared to budge, he said.

“I think the parties involved will have to show a little more pragmatism to get there,” Schaefer said.

During a Columbia Business Times Power Lunch a few weeks before AmerenUE quit the fight, Schaefer said each one of the powerful groups involved in the debate carried a “hand grenade” and could kill the bill at any time by pulling the pin.

The first explosion came soon thereafter.

A group called Fair Electricity Rate Action Fund – backed in part by a southeast Missouri aluminum company – ran television advertisements asserting that the bill would heap big rate increases onto Missourians.

Sen. John Griesheimer, R-Washington, said the organized television campaign by FERAF – and Ameren’s tepid response – hurt the legislation’s prospects.

Grieseimer said AmerenUE would have to do a better job of communicating next year if they want to repeal CWIP.

“Ameren should have started this early this year,” Griesheimer said, referring to a publicity campaign to build support for CWIP. “They should have started this, in my opinion, late last year when they knew this is what they were going to do. Because they had to know at some point somebody was going to go off the reservation and try to do a hatchet job campaign to scuttle the whole project.”

Gregg Keller, a spokesman for FERAF, said Ameren will have to be more conciliatory if they want to revisit the issue.