Boston (Platts)--3Oct2012/323 pm EDT/1923 GMT

Two Florida legislators said Wednesday that if the Florida Supreme Court does not rule that a state law allowing for early cost recovery for nuclear projects is unconstitutional, they will mount a new, more aggressive effort to repeal the law in the 2013 legislative session.

Senator Mike Fasano, a Republican, and Representative Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, a Democrat, said during a conference call that while previous efforts to repeal the 2006 law have failed, they believe that the challenge to the law now before the state's highest court -- and a planned effort to make Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy Florida customers more aware of the early cost recovery charges on their bills -- will give repeal legislation a better chance of passage than before.

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A day before the Florida Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy's challenge to the law, Fasano and Vasilinda both called the idea of early cost recovery "a hidden tax," particularly as it pertains to new nuclear units that FP&L and PEF acknowledge may never be built. The law also allows early cost recovery for nuclear uprate projects, four of which FP&L has either completed or planned.

FP&L is seeking combined operating licenses for two new nuclear units at its Turkey Point station in Miami-Dade County, and PEF, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, is doing the same for two units at a greenfield site in Levy County. None of the units are expected to come online until sometime in the early 2020s.

--Housley Carr, newsdesk@platts.com
--Edited by Lisa Miller, lisa_miller@platts.com

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