Dear Michael Peevey, President, California Public Utilities Commission

Please copy and paste the following letter to the following: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/sendemail/(apg20445tev00ljy3hcmmtrx)/sendmail.aspx?cmr=5218

Dear Michael Peevey, President, California Public Utilities Commission

Subject: Application of PG&E for Approval of Ratepayer Funding to Perform Additional Seismic Studies Recommended by the CEC

As a California ratepayer, I wish to join Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee (R-SLO) in support of PG&E’s application seeking funding authorization.  The CPUC authorization would allow PG&E to proceed with the implementation of seismic studies recommended by state oversight agencies and the state legislature and upheld by the Governor.  Assemblyman Blakeslee, who holds a Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Barbara for his research in seismic scattering, micro-earthquake studies, and fault-zone attenuation, has closely followed the Energy Commission’s recommendations and his leadership on this issue has been valuable to the community and the state.

Without the results of updated seismic mapping and studies, both the county and the state place ratepayers and California’s economy at risk.  We do not presume to know what the results of these studies will be, but we are certain that there will be impacts to our county. Even though the current licenses for Diablo Canyon do not expire for over 15 years, San Luis Obispo is being asked now to accept the risks of 20 more years of aging reactors that produce and must store highly radioactive waste onsite.  We are being asked to go forth without investigating the alternatives that may be available or the risks we are being asked to assume.

We therefore ask that the CPUC condition the funding on PG&E’s requesting a stay in the NRC relicensing application until seismic studies are complete and reviewed.  PG&E was given our ratepayer funding in their 2007 GRC to do a feasibility study, the results of which were supposed to be submitted to your CPUC for your determination on whether PG&E should proceed with relicensing.  PG&E has already spent our money on the yet unseen feasibility study, and has filed at the NRC without completing those steps.  We request that no further ratepayer funding for any relicensing activities—except completing the state mandated seismic studies in an expedited and timely manner—be approved. When required seismic studies and mapping is complete, then the NRC process can proceed, if warranted, without foreseeable costly legal battles.

NRC Regulations state “…the NRC has no role in energy planning decisions.  State regulatory agencies, system operators, power plant owners, and, in some cases other Federal agencies, ultimately decide whether the plant should continue to operate”.  In 1967 California permitted construction of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant without knowing of any offshore earthquake faults.  In 1982, the NRC granted an operating license, which acknowledged one active fault less than three miles offshore, and required over $2 billion in retrofits. 

PG&E would like Californians to decide now whether Diablo Canyon can operate for 20 years beyond 2025 without placing our state’s economy and reliable generation at risk. The NRC’s own timetable indicates relicensing should only require 36 months.  Therefore, there is ample time in the present to make sure all studies are complete before moving ahead with this process, and that the state has time to exercise its jurisdictional duty to review seismic studies before placing current and future ratepayers and stakeholders at financial risk.

 Sincerely,