Title
Report from Jeff Johnson on the Recent Trip to Attend the American Public Power Association (APPA) 2020 Legislative Rally and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) Meetings
Recommended Action
None
Staff Recommendation
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Body
From Sunday 2/23/20 - Thursday 2/27/20 Philo Shelton and Jeff Johnson attended the American Public Power Association (APPA) legislative rally. The APPA is an association that represents the interests of community owned and operated electric utilities. The legislative rally is orchestrated around congressional initiatives that are important to the APPA.
Observationally, many of the participants are organized into regional organizations, similar to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS). The DPU attended in support of our association with UAMPS and specifically to express support of the DPU involvement in the Small Modular Reactor project.
While the bulk of our visit revolved around getting to know the UAMPS members and representatives who attended the meeting, and outreach to the New Mexico congressional delegation, Philo and I did attended several APPA presentations which included a discussion about distributed power impacts on local systems; pole attachments and easements; a general luncheon with guest speaker Mara Liasson who talked about the general election and a breakfast with guest speaker Representative Pete Olsen who talked about the diversity of Texas electrical generation and tied this diversity to free market forces.
The UAMPS team organized congressional visits for all the UAMPS members who attended the rally, these included visits to the Utah, Idaho and New Mexico delegation. Philo and I met with representatives from Senators Udall and Heinrich’s office as well as Representative Lujan’s office. In these meetings we were accompanied by Mason Baker (UAMPS attorney) at all the meetings, and variously with Mike Squires (UAMPS congressional liaison), John Radford (City Council member Idaho Falls), Rebecca Casper (Mayor, Idaho Falls) and perhaps one or two other individuals.
We met with Senator Lujan’s staff on Tuesday 2/25/20 at 2:00, Senator Heinrich’s staff at 2/26/20 at 4:00 pm, and Representative Lujan and his staff on 2/26/20 at 10:30 am. Generally, Philo and I discussed Los Alamos County support of the Carbon Free Power Project, including strong political and community support. We encouraged legislative support of the project by supporting a planned DOE $165M investment into the project. We discussed the importance of the project to provide firmed power as it is related to the DPU carbon neutral goals, we discussed the need for more formal risk mitigation of the project as it pertains to the projected $55/MWh price point. We expressed support of Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA), bi-cameral legislation that is working its way through the process that will in part allow DOE Laboratories to enter into contracts longer than 10 years.
Our reception with Lujan was very good. He generally expressed support of our initiatives related to nuclear power. The Heinrich staff were also receptive to our discussions. The Udall staff were receptive and polite, but not very participatory in our discussions.
We suggest that county staff and Council continue to reinforce community SMR support when they have the opportunity to also meet with congressional delegates.
Alternatives
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Fiscal and Staff Impact
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Attachments
A - Joint Action Agencies Information
B - UAMPS 2020 APPA Rally Talking Points