Leonard Bentz says The whole (Mississippi Power Coal Plant) story is not getting told

Commentary: Big questions for Kemper County coal plant come down to who knew what and when

MBJ Staff

In May of 2010 we wrote, “For better or worse, the economic future for the next 40 years in southeastern Mississippi will be greatly impacted by the decision of Public Service Commissioner Leonard Bentz. ”

Justices with the Mississippi Supreme Court may be asking now how he came to his decision when he changed his vote from no to yes in a rehearing to approve the $2.8-billion Mississippi Power Company Kemper County coal plant.

Bentz and Lynn Posey have been for the project all along while Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley has steadfastly been against Kemper, calling it, among other things, “Corporate Socialism. ”

However, Bentz has had questions before, particularly concerning rate impacts, which Mississippi Power has never fully disclosed.

“The whole story is not getting told,” Bentz told the Mississippi Business Journal prior to the second vote of the PSC. “It is frustrating. I want to build this plant, but I want everybody to know exactly what is going to happen when we build this plant. I have to look Gulf Coast residents in the eye and tell them I did everything I could to get the information on the table. ”

Yet, the entire story has not been told, and Bentz voted for the plant after publicly questioning its validity a year and half ago.

This case is before the Supreme Court because of the Sierra Club, which is trying to stop the construction of the plant already underway near Liberty. Sierra argues that the PSC broke the law by failing to lay out a clear reason for easing financial terms in its second vote.

“I did not see and still do not find anywhere where the commission explained to the court why this was now not too risky,” said Associate Justice Randy “Bubba” Pierce. “I want to know what happened between April 29 and May 26. What additional facts were submitted to the record?”

That’s a great question for Bentz, who is on the record saying, “The whole story is not getting told. ”

There are two more questions that should be asked.

Is the plant needed?

Will it work?

First, the plant is not needed, because Mississippi Power can supply energy to South Mississippi with natural gas, which the MBJ has reported will be less expensive over a 30 year period than the energy supplied at Kemper.

Second, in an editorial board meeting with Mississippi Power executives and its construction experts, they were not completely secure in the ability of the Kemper technology to work.

We asked if they could guarantee the technology would work when they flipped the switch for the first time at Kemper.

The answer, after a long pause, was no.

With that information, how could the PSC vote for, what amounts to, a $2.88 billion tax on the people of South Mississippi for energy that can gotten elsewhere — and for less money?

We suspect Mississippi’s Supreme Court will ask those question when all is said and done, and maybe, just maybe Bentz or someone will tell the rest of the story.

(here)

Blackouts Expected as Obama’s War on Fossil Fuels Heat Up

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.1324331373.html

Experts Discuss Obama’s War On Fossil Fuels — And Coming Blackouts

Energy experts discuss Obama’s war on fossil fuels and the potential for rolling blackouts all over the U.S. in the near future — due to EPAedicts.

Here

DID BARBOUR LOBBY FOR KEMPER COUNTY COAL PLANT?

It is not my original idea that Haley Barbour Lobbied and profited from the build of Mississippi Power and Southern Company’s experimental lignite coal plant in Kemper County.  I believe we can count on Phil Bryant to do a good job.

HERE

 

By BEN SMITH Politico

The news that Haley Barbour will return to his lobbying practice at BGR, the firm he founded and that made him a wealthy man, comes as anything but a surprise. Barbour, in fact, never really left. He has, as has been reported, continued to be paid from the firm — through a blind trust — as governor of Mississippi.

But that’s not Barbour’s only connection to the firm. He’s also continued to operate out of its Washington, D.C. office on at least some of his frequent trips to Washington, D.C.

A Democratic operative who filmed the video above when Barbour was contemplating a presidential campaign sends it over. In the video, shot last October, Barbour and his entourage enter BGR’s office.

“Doing a little lobbying, Governor?” the cameraman asks.

“Borrowing a cheap phone,” he replies.

That’s what BGR is known for: Cheapest phones in DC.

Mississippi Supreme Court Questions Kemper Coal Plant

Supremes Question Kemper

Residents near a planned 582-megawatt coal plant protested the project that threatens to raise their electric rates by 45 percent.

by R.L. Nave
Dec. 21, 2011

In all the pages of court records regarding a dispute between environmentalists and an electric utility company–pages that one Mississippi Supreme Court justice characterized as the most voluminous he has seen in his eight years on the court–one important piece of information eluded the justices.

What changed between April and May for the Mississippi Public Service Commission to reverse itself and allow Mississippi Power Co. jack up the cap on a 582-megawatt Kemper County coal plant by $480 million dollars?

“So far I don’t find anything in the commission’s order itself–and haven’t yet found in the record–what it is that would help me understand that the commission is justified in making this factual conclusion that the risks are now balanced,” presiding Justice Jess H. Dickinson said last week.

Brandon Presley, the PSC’s northern district commissioner, has an idea. Presley voted against fellow commissioners Lynn Posey and Leonard Bentz, of the central and southern district respectively, on the cap increase.

“The only thing I saw change was letters came in from Barack Obama’s energy secretary and Haley Barbour,” Presley said.

Last summer, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Gov. Barbour wrote letters asking Presley to reconsider his opposition to Mississippi Power raising the price tag of the plant, which is now under construction. Presley balked at the idea, calling the project a bad deal for consumers.

“If President Obama or Governor Barbour like this plant so much, let them come up with a way to pay for it,” he told the Jackson Free Press last week.

Presley, along with consumer and environmental advocacy groups, has fought to oppose the plant, albeit for slightly different reasons at times.

“I have no problem whatsoever with clean coal technology,” Presley said. “I have a problem with asking the people of Mississippi to be guinea pigs.”

The Sierra Club opposes the 582-megawatt plant because it is slated to use experimental internal gasification combined technology to burn low-grade lignite coal. As the basis for its lawsuit against Mississippi Power and the PSC, the suit before the Mississippi Supreme Court, the Sierra Club also argued that the commission failed in its obligation to publicly explain its rationale for the reversal.

On April 29, 2010, Commissioners Posey and Bentz issued a decision limiting the ratepayer cost of the plant to $2.4 billion. Mississippi Power stockholders of Company would have to pick up any costs above $2.4 billion, they said at the time.

The Atlanta-based utility complained that it should be able to pass any additional costs down to the ratepayers, and warned that it could not afford to build the plant if not allowed to pass on all the costs, including those above $2.4 billion.

Less than one month later, the commission revised its decision May 26, allowing the company to charge ratepayers up to $2.88 billion for the plant. Mississippi Power did not publicly release the amount of the rate increase customers would shoulder as a result.

After being pressed by justices at the hearing, Sierra Club attorney Robert Wiygul said he obtained confidential information showing that ratepayers’ energy bills could rise as much as 45 percent.

Since the hearing, the justices are reviewing the remainder of the court documents and could bring the parties back to clarify some points before the three-judge panel or the full nine-member court. From there, they can remand the issue back to the PSC for review or strike provisions of the deal.

PSC Commissioners Posey and Bentz did not return calls by press time.

“I’m not counting any chickens before they hatch,” said Louie Miller, state director of the Mississippi Sierra Club. “I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic.”

Your Movements will be Monitored via SMART GRID and SMART METERS

Growing field of ‘smart grid’ technology faces opposition over pricing, privacy

By , Published: November 11 | Updated: Saturday, November 12, 7:05 PM

Ralph Izzo, the chief executive of the New Jersey’s Public Service Electric and Gas Co., isn’t your average utility executive.

At Columbia University, he studied mechanical engineering as an undergraduate and later earned a doctorate in applied physics. At the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, he did numerical simulations of fusion experiments and published or presented 35 papers on something called “magnetohydrodynamic modeling.”

So it’s not surprising he would say that he “fell in love” in 1998 with the gadgetry commonly known as “smart grid” technology — as Izzo puts it, “customer communication technology, real-time price signals and fantastic sensory capability.”

But 13 years later, Izzo says, “I have only now come to realize that what I really wish my customers would do would be to use more caulking.”

The smart grid has been one of the most talked-about issues in energy policy. Experts — and manufacturers of equipment and software — have promoted the idea that “smart meters” could enable utilities to flip household appliances on and off to ease the load of summertime electricity demand and that the devices would help homeowners manage their refrigerators, lights and air conditioning, even controlling them remotely with cellphones, laptops or tablets. Smart grid technology is also seen as critical for integrating renewable energy sources onto grids designed to carry power one way only, from big clunky generating stations to the home.

In summary, they can turn off a new mother’s refrigerator so her stored breast milk can sour, or that the medication stored in the fridge and looses effectiveness.   The AC turned off at peak time could cost lives of the physically vulnerable. Get the picture?  There is no talk of how we the people will retain any control over our electrical use.  If they want it off, it will be off.  And this is only the tip of it.   I haven’t even gotten started.

All this depends on software, networking devices and smart meters, tens of millions of which have been installed across the country. If the grid is modern society’s central nervous system, then the smart meter could become the brains of the operation.

Yet many utilities have come to the conclusion Izzo has: You can install smart meters in homes, but the homes probably still have dumb appliances and homeowners who are too busy to be bothered. At least for now, simple measures such as caulking might save more energy.

The goal of SMART GRID, SMART METER… is  “behavior modification.”  They want to control our carbon foot print.  Who is they?  The smart grid is attached to a global computer and America is the big bad polluter, you think it is someone local at the “City Dashboard”  and “City Cockpit?”  I predict NOT.

DO NOT FORGET THAT 1/3 of the UN Agenda 21 is SOCIAL EQUALITY, so how do you think that measures in, since we as Americans are unequal to 3rd worlds?  America must fall or sacrifice so others can rise.  That is not a quote but is an ongoing repeating sentiment.

“Somehow all of us collectively decided to skip the low-hanging fruit and go for the top of the tree,” he said at a recent energy conference sponsored by The Washington Post.

Notice the belittling tone to beat you into submission?  They are so much superior in thought than we uneducated people.

Nonetheless, entire industries have sprouted up around the idea of a “smarter” electricity grid, one in which people would know more about their consumption, utilities would gain more power over the places hogging too much electricity at peak hours, and broken transmission equipment could be isolated and repaired more quickly.

Utilities say that more sophisticated meters will let them know which homes lose electricity in a storm without having to send a truck. That could speed the restoration of power.

I have not heard of a swarm of people loudly complaining that the Electric Co failed to know there was an outage, have you?  This is an example of an invented problem that when solved nudges our rights and citizens of the USA.

“Empowering consumers with information about how much energy they use and when is huge and gives consumers, for the first time, the opportunity to adjust their own energy usage and be a lot more active in how they use energy,” said Lena Hansen, a principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit think tank.

This is what they want you to know, half the truth. Failure to give full disclosure is criminal in my eyes.  The Smart Meter, and SMART GRID along with new appliances, MONITOR your movements in the rooms to change the air circulation for maximum comfort.  Full disclosure, insurance companies can see if you are using the medical device assigned as directed and drop you from treatment or coverage for non compliance of lying.  Thieves, Electric Co staff, police, stalkers, your spouse, and voyeuristic criminals can gain access,  monitor your movements in your home, and know intimate details of your life. as well as profitable intimate consumer information.   Appliance companies will be able to target you. You will live in a glass house with no privacy and well controlled.

At bout 1 min into this it describes with animation how it monitors movement in the rooms of your home.  Want Yours, your children’s, or teen daughter’s activities watched by strangers? Bet your Smart Meter/Smart Grid Rep didn’t tell you that.


Improving the grid wouldn’t take much, given its condition. As Bob Shapard, chief executive of the Texas utility Oncor Electric Delivery, says, most meters being replaced date from the 1960s — “older technology than rotary phones.”

This problem has drawn the attention of some of the nation’s largest manufacturers, including Siemens, which does everything from automating electrical substations to writing software to manage meter information; Oracle, which makes grid management software; Echelon, Landis & Gyr and Itron, manufacturers of meters; and Cisco Systems and Silver Spring Networks, which provide communication links.

Other companies are working farther from the home meter, doing things such as measuring more precisely how much energy a line can hold or diagnosing and isolating disruptions so that wide-scale blackouts can be avoided and reliability improved.

“Over the last 30 to 40 years, most of our focus has been on generation,” said James W. Morozzi, president the Gridwise Alliance, a trade association devoted to transforming the grid.

But with greater attention to greenhouse gas emissions, that’s changing.

The United Nations Kyoto Protocols lists the  #1 green house gas to be Carbon Dioxide.  There is great wealth and power to be made revamping the entire system, so it is important to somehow show a need where there is none for justification purposes.  I am not convinced.

Doing something to limit electricity consumption is crucial. The country’s 142 million customers consume 4,200 billion kilowatt hours a year, and those numbers are expected to increase to 160 million customers and 5,200 billion kilowatt hours by 2020, Morozzi says. “Saving even 1 percent is important.”

A hard sell

Connecting with customers, however, hasn’t been easy.

In Bakersfield, Calif., in the summer of 2009, homeowners rebelled when the utility PG&E installed smart meters. It didn’t help that PG&E raised rates, or that Bakersfield had an unusually hot summer. Customers accused the utility of using inaccurate meters, though an independent audit later said the new meters were more accurate than the old ones.

RATES WENT UP!!!!  They were told their rates would go down.  Since there are no dials, and it is digital there is no way to see if charges are accurate, you must trust the companies involved.  Will that be like the traffic light cameras set at lights timing where the yellow light is greatly shortened to bring funds to the city justifying the costs of the cameras? 

Smart meter foes — they have a Web site, StopSmartMeters.org — say that 47 cities and counties have adopted resolutions opposing installation of the devices. The California Public Utilities Commission, which, unlike those towns, has authority over meter installations, has ordered PG&E to allow customers to opt out.

“After Bakersfield, we totally changed the way we roll out a new technology in a community,” PG&E spokesman Greg Snapper said. First, the utility does a lot more explaining about how the meters work. It now has installed 8.7 million new meters, though it has not fully utilized them.

In Nevada, the state Public Utilities Commission is conducting an investigation of health complaints people have tried to link to the meters, though the meters’ radio frequency emissions are lower than cellphones or many other appliances.

It takes years to determine physical outcomes of exposure.  The science is still out, we are waiting to hear the conclusions.  But meanwhile other countries have set protective measures in the emissions where America is set to a Military standard and is one of the highest limits on Frequency emissions.

In Boulder, Colo., voters upset about Xcel Energy’s “SmartGridCity” plan passed a measure Tuesday that would allow the city to take over the local utility.

In Maryland and Illinois, plans to install smart meters have triggered fights with AARP, which has argued that the meters will come with new pricing plans that will hurt the poor and elderly.

“People like us can turn down the air conditioning when we go to the office,” said Scott Musser, AARP’s associate state director for outreach and advocacy in Illinois. “But those who are home could be penalized by paying the peak rates at peak times. ”

In Maryland, installation of the meters was blocked.

In Illinois, the governor, backed by AARP, vetoed a measure that would let the state’s two big utilities charge customers enough to cover $2.6 billion of investments — half of it for the “smart grid” — over the next 10 years. But the legislature overrode the veto.

The meters “could be cool and fancy, but nobody knows what benefit may or may not come of it,” Musser said.

There is little trust or affection between homeowners and their utilities, and that becomes clear when questions about security crop up. The utilities will gain data that essentially tell them when people leave home — for instance, when the electric garage door opens or the heat is turned down. Consumer groups worry that hackers or corrupt utility workers could use the information to break into homes.

Assessing the benefits

Gridwise Alliance’s Morozzi says that utilities “have to engage consumers and make clear that there are benefits.”

What are those benefits?

For utilities, they are clear. The meter reader will become extinct. Diagnostics done by trucks will be done from a central office. And if homes and businesses cut energy use in peak demand hours, utilities can avoid building power plants that will operate only a few hours a day for just a few days a year. In California, for example, peak usage can be two-thirds higher than the demand at other times of the day. With climate change, the differential could become even more extreme.

For homeowners to benefit, they need to figure out how to cut consumption, identifying electricity guzzlers and paying attention to rates that will vary during the day. Oncor’s Shapard says that 1,000 consumers who took part in a smart meter pilot project in north Texas, featuring a contest with prizes for winners, cut consumption by 8 to 12 percent. Most of that, however, was done by 50 homeowners, who averaged a 24 percent drop in consumption.

Gregory Kats, who manages investment funds, sits on the board of a software company called Tendril Networks, which has agreements with 100,000 homes. In return for financial compensation, the homeowners allow utilities, for example, to lower their air conditioning on hot summer days.

Information is key, say advocates of smart meters.

Itron President Philip Mezey says that presentation matters. His company, working with Cisco, has adopted an open architecture, anticipating that people will come up with new applications and gadgets for controlling electricity use at home. “We need to engage with the larger community of innovation,” he says.

Without smart meters, Shapard says, using electricity and getting monthly bills is “like going to the grocery store and throwing bacon, eggs and cheese in the basket without knowing the price, walking out and getting the bill sent to them later.”

Putting in a Smart Meter is like surrendering all in home privacy and rights.

SMART METER VICTORY

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTnGMN-kQ64&feature=related

World Opinion Is Changing and Reason is Here to STAY

Canada has pulled out of the 1997 anti-global warming Kyoto protocol, saying the treaty is ‘not working’. The departure comes a day after further climate talks in South Africa led to a new agreement, which is set to replace Kyoto by 2015. Piers Corbyn, the founder of the Weather Action Foundation, hopes Canada withdrawal will lead to the collapse of “useless” Kyoto protocol.

Urgent Agenda 21 Meeting

UN Agenda 21 means “Agenda for the Twenty-first Century”.  It is a plan to destroy a free America. There are many terms in our society today that relate to Agenda 21. Smart Growth, Sustainable Development, urbanism, environmental stewardship, Green space, global warming, carbon footprint……..  Many of these sound good but the end results is far from good.  Agenda 21 is designed to take away your property and control every aspect of your life … the end result is to take away your freedom.  Agenda 21 clearly states the goal is “Reorientation of Human Society”.

More and more American’s desire to learn about Agenda 21, we are beginning to recognize its encroachment in our cities & parishes. It’s right here in our own state!

On Saturday, January 14th, 2012, you will have an opportunity to learn from Ruth Esser the history of the United Nations Agenda 21.   Mr. Tom DeWeese will be our keynote speaker. Mr DeWeese is an internationally known speaker, an author and an expert on Sustainable Development & the UN Agenda 21.  He is the Founder of the American Policy Center. We will gain much insight from Tom DeWeese.  You don’t want to miss this!

Knowledge and Action are our best tools to fight the United Nation’s “Agenda 21”!

Moon Griffon, The Voice of Louisiana will be our Master of Ceremonies

                                  Mark your calendar for the Symposium, seating is limited!

                                                  
Date: Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Time: 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Location:
Family Christian Academy
8919 World Ministry Ave.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

EVENT LOCATION MAP

http://www.agenda21la.com/Information.php

(Contact your local community groups for next Agenda 21 meeting near you.)

———————————————————————

This event will be filled with educational material from some of the best experts on the topics concerning Agenda 21.

AGENDA 21 in 1 easy lesson

—————————————————————————————————–

Agenda 21
BUZZ WORDS:  sustainable development, smart growth, biodiversity, social justice
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.  Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were adopted by more than 178 Governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, in June, 1992.  Although it was not an international treaty, and, therefore, never ratified by the United States Senate, executive orders written by every president since President George H. W. Bush has instituted its principles.  The ultimate goal of Agenda 21 in to bring to fruition The United Nations “Habitat 1 Conference Report” of 1976, which states:

Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of an accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice…Public control of land use is therefore indispensable.”

In other words, Agenda 21 is aimed at controlling all property rights.  Areas on the Gulf Coast which were devastated by Hurricane Katrina are some of the most affected in that nearly all (if not all) communities accepted federal monies to rebuild after Katrina.  That money has ties to the United Nations and Agenda 21 through various governmental and nongovernmental agencies, including, but not limited to: the EPA, USDA, ICLEI, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. National Park Service, Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Education, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, American Planning Association, Rockefeller Foundation, Pew Foundation, and Ford Foundation.
Money tied to these organizations puts restrictions on land usage; you may own the land (including your house) and pay taxes on the land, but if federal money was accepted by your local officials, your rights to do with your land as you want may very well be restricted.
Bring as many friends and family as you can find.  All are affected.

Sources:

http://www.stopagenda21inms.com/

http://green-agenda.com/index.html

Mississippi High Court Justices Seek Reasons why PSC Reversed Itself to allow Kemper Co. Coal Plant

JACKSON, Miss. — Three Mississippi Supreme Court justices asked repeatedly Wednesday where the state Public Service Commission laid out its reasoning when it modified its decision to allow the construction of a Kemper County power plant last year.

The Sierra Club is trying to get the Supreme Court to derail the $2.7 billion power plant, now under construction in Kemper County’s Liberty community. The environmental group argues the PSC broke the law by failing to lay out its reasoning clearly when it eased the financial terms under which Mississippi Power Co. could build what it calls Plant Ratcliffe.

A lawyer for Mississippi Power said the commission didn’t have to provide such reasoning, though. He said judges could find reasons to support the decision in the 30,000-plus pages of testimony and records submitted as part of the appeal.

Mississippi Power says rates will go up about 33 percent to pay for the plant. However, Sierra Club lawyer Robert Wiygul told the court Wednesday that confidential documents he has reviewed show rates would rise as much as 45 percent. The Mississippi Business Journal reported the same amount in August 2010, citing documents obtained through a public records request.

A unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co., Mississippi Power would buy lignite mined nearby, turn it into a synthetic gas, and burn the gas, capturing byproducts such as carbon dioxide and selling them. The technology is supposed to allow coal to be burned more cleanly and cut emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists say contribute to global warming. Mississippi Power says the plant is needed to provide more electricity for its 193,000 customers scattered from Meridian to the Gulf Coast.

The Sierra Club opposes the project, saying that the technology behind the plant is unproven and that it’s undesirable under any circumstances to build new coal mines and new coal-fired power plants. The environmental group says it would be cheaper for Mississippi Power to build a natural gas plant or buy power from independent natural gas generators.

“The law requires the Public Service Commission to choose the cheapest and most reliable technology and power plant,” Louie Miller, executive director of the Mississippi Sierra Club, said at a pre-hearing news conference. “This is neither.”

The PSC originally voted in April 2010 to cap at $2.4 billion the amount that Mississippi Power could charge ratepayers for the plant. The company is also getting about $300 million in federal assistance. Commissioners also said the power company couldn’t charge ratepayers for the plant before it started operation.

Mississippi Power said it couldn’t build under those conditions and asked the PSC to reconsider.  (Previously suggested most corrupt in MS) Lawyer Ben Stone  said Wednesday that it needed wiggle room for cost overruns, and wanted to charge ratepayers early to cut the interest customers would pay on money borrowed for the project.

"Uncle Ben Stone", Haley Barbour, and Steven Palazzo

"Uncle Ben Stone", Haley Barbour, and Steven Palazzo

“We could not go to the financial markets without some relief in both of those areas and finance the plant,” Stone said.

If this scheme had any merit it could have found investors.  With a negative credit score and historical pattern of Lignite Coal plant failure, Investors know Mississippi Power and Southern Company’s Kemper Coal Plant is a money pit with no intention of making money. It will be fined, regulated with fees, and taxed right out of any possible profits.  Among other costs to run problems they will encounter.  The profit comes in when MS power can charge a percent of its overall costs to the ratepayers.  Criminal and truly un-American, isn’t it? 

 A month later, commissioners voted 2-1 to give Mississippi Power what it wanted, raising the cost cap by 20 percent, to $2.88 billion. The commission must still agree that company spending is “prudent” for it to collect any money, even below $2.4 billion. It also allowed Mississippi Power to start charging before the plant’s scheduled start in 2014. Under state law, Mississippi Power can keep the money even if the plant is never completed.

It is not prudent to charge ratepayers for an experimental CO2 capturing mechanism that fails to produce any electricity, and  is founded on global warming science fraud, and a cap-and-trade system not yet in adopted. 

The key issue in Wednesday’s case is not whether the plant is a good idea, but whether the PSC adequately laid out its rationale for what Miller labeled a “flip-flop” by commissioners Leonard Bentz and Lynn Posey, who voted for the amended conditions.

The Sierra Club said the PSC didn’t adequately explain. “That’s going to require some evidence you can see and really get your arms around,” Wiygul said.

He said judges shouldn’t have to pick and choose reasons from the overflow of material submitted with the appeal, and the three justices sitting Wednesday seemed sympathetic to that argument.

“I did not see and still do not find anywhere where the commission explained to the court why this was now not too risky,” said Associate Justice Randy “Bubba” Pierce. “I want to know what happened between April 29 and May 26. What additional facts were submitted to the record?”

Stone said the new facts were contained in Mississippi Power’s motion to reconsider and its post-hearing briefs. “It’s very obvious to us that all those matters are supported,” he told the justices.

More importantly, though, he said the PSC was not required to summarize its reasoning for court review. Stone said that a prior court case says that as long as the court can find the reasoning in the record leading to the decision, the court must let the PSC’s decision stand.

JEFF AMY  Associated Press

Extreme Green Groups Pressures Southern Company to Comply with False Global Warming Science

HERE http://www.greenamerica.org/PDF/SouthernCompanyReport.pdf

The Green America with connection to the United Nations (HERE) is calling Southern Company names like

“Dirtiest Power Plants in the US”

Based on what harmful Pollution? CARBON DIOXIDE!!!!!  CO2 helps plants grow, does not cause global warming as current science has proven and exposed the false science of Al Gore and the United Nations Sponsored research where the conclusion was purchased and coordinated with falsified data.  See Global warming Scam.

While the rush to build new coal plants in the US has been turned back through the efforts of
local opponents and national nonprofit groups, the US still has approximately 600 coal-fired
power plants in operation. Many of these coal-fired plants are 40 to 50 years old and highly
polluting. Table 2 contains data regarding the top 10 worst polluting plants in the United States
in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

Another Green (Earth is god) Group Pushing the UN Kyoto Protocol  says this:

The real price of Southern Company’s strategy include: asthma, heart disease, lung disease, air and water pollution, global warming, and the potential for catastrophic accidents. Clean Air Task Force data indicates that the cost of death and disease caused by Southern Company’s non-climate-change pollution alone is over $9 billion.1 While the electricity costs for Southern Company’s ratepayers may appear to be low, they are paying the price in health care costs…While Southern Company’s shareholders may be getting dividends today, they risk the future value of their shares if Southern Company’s policies continue.”

But I have read similar of Southern Company’s documents where they list number of deaths as a result of their pollution.  

I conclude this is one reason Southern Company is following the Earth worshipers, because they are loud and call them names Southern Company can’t handle the pressure.