Rural electrics in Pa., heavily invested in nuclear power, want ratepayers to help it compete with gas-fired power

Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association map shows its members and their service territories

"They are talking about nuclear power across rural Pennsylvania," Marc Levy reports for The Associated Press, because rural electric cooperatives "in the nation's No. 2 nuclear-power state have perhaps the biggest stake in what critics call a bailout" of the industry, which is pending in the state legislature.

"Every opportunity that we have, I encourage our member-owners to bring this up," Frank Betley, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association, told Levy. "I hope that our people are talking to (lawmakers) at every turn to let them know that, 'Hey, this is important to us.'"

Nuclear power plant owners warn that they are "being driven into unprofitability, primarily by a flood of cheap natural gas plants entering competitive electricity markets," Levy writes. They want "the same favorable treatment in Pennsylvania as wind farms, solar installations and other 'carbon-free' energy sources," and that would raise Pennsylvanians' electric bills an average of about 3 percent.

The co-op association's 14 members, including one in northern New Jersey, own 10 percent of a nuclear plant that supplies about 60 percent of their 230,000 member-owners' electricity. "That, they say, has helped them keep their rates well below what for-profit utilities charge ratepayers," Levy reports. If the plant is shut down because of low rates, "members of the cooperatives can expect a big increase in their electric bills. But if the bailout bill passes, it "would shield members of the cooperatives from the rate increases that most of Pennsylvania's other electric customers will pay."

Levy offers a political analysis: "Passing a complicated, heavily lobbied and politically thorny bill won't be easy. Securing the backing of Gov. Tom Wolf and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature will likely require adding clean-energy concessions and limiting nuclear power subsidies. At the same time, swinging the votes of rural lawmakers behind it could be the difference between its success and failure in the Republican-controlled Legislature. Some rural lawmakers may have divided loyalties if Pennsylvania's considerable natural-gas industry maintains its opposition to any nuclear-friendly legislation. And the cooperatives aren't prominent campaign donors. But nearly 70 House and Senate members have cooperative service territory in their districts, the cooperatives say. Some of the cooperatives' employees and board members are well known to lawmakers, and the cooperatives are involved in civic causes and donate to local organizations."