Nebraska is Suing OPPD?!?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joined now by Nebraska Attorney General Maya Kilgers. Mister Attorney General,
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, good morning Gary. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You bet, it's good to have you back here. And
I've Jim and I have talked a lot about the
power situation, particularly surrounding the Omaha Metro and OPPD and
the massive demand that's on the way and our concerns
about not being able to meet it. And then the
board announced, the OPPD board that they're going to shut

(00:28):
down a few power producing units up in North Omaha
s which the other two to coal fire, from cold
fire to natural gas, and that you know, I had
to take another roll aid over that one. And then
here you come with this lawsuit. You're saying, no, you
can't do that because that's not your job to do

(00:50):
anything except provide reliable power at a reasonable cost. Right,
is that the essence of it?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, that's basically right. Look, we have proper power in Nebraska,
only state that does, and those public power districts have
a lot of discretion on how they want to run
their districts. But the legislature, state law says you have
to prioritize affordability and reliability, and you set it yourself, Gary,
how critical that is now? It's really important for families,
it's important for growth, for businesses. For certainty, we can't

(01:17):
take double digit rate increases. And with this enormous demand,
it's more important than ever that public power districts for
focus on affordability and reliability. And we know when they don't,
rates go up. And the way you keep things affordable
and reliable is you keep known, known sources dispatchable power
like cold natural gas online. You can add, you can

(01:38):
add other resources, renewables or whatever you'd like. But taking
those resources offline, we think goes outside of their the
twin goals and the mandate from those Nebraska legislature, and
that's why that's why we ultimately suit.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Are But aren't you, Attorney General Hilders, a little bit
outside of your lane? We have elected bodies and boards
that do THISPP Board, Nebraska Public Power Board LAS board.
Isn't it their problem?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh? We are absolutely not outside of our lane. And
the reason is is because we give a lot of
discretion to local political subdivisions. But what happens if those
local political subdivisions go outside of their lane, go outside
of their statutory mandate and that's what's happening here. The
question is who's entitled and who's empowered to actually police
that action. So if OPBD tomorrow'sid to take all their

(02:26):
generation offline, that might be a vote of the local board,
but that's going to harm rate payers, is going to
make things less affordable, less reliable. The question is who
can do anything about it? And actually, in this case,
may be the only entity that can do anything about
it is attorney Attorney General's Office. I believe strongly in
local control, but in order to have local control, you
still have to have accountability, and we are kind of

(02:49):
uniquely positioned to make sure that they're held accountable.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Is this a matter of state law? Is this a
matter of state policy or law?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
It is? It is because over the what last nine years,
we've had public power. The twin goals are affordability and reliability.
That's set by state statute. Everything comes through state laws.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
You've got two state senators representing a general area in
North Omaha who say their people are complaining about health
issues because of coal plants. You say that the data
does not back that up. Is this the essence of
where this lawsuit might be decided?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, there's a couple of questions. I think the lawsuit
is going to be decided on whether or not taking
two hundred megawatts of power, which is enough to power,
you know, two hundred thousand homes at a time of
increasingly high demand on our grid, whether that is going
to undermine reliability and affordability. I think the answer to
that is clearly yes. The second question is what are
some of the health impacts in that particular area. I

(03:49):
don't think that's actually going to drive the lawsuit, but
it's an important consideration for me, it's an important consideration
for policy for policy makers. What I've said is I've said,
look the data we've seen, the air quality index data
that we've seen in the federal government regulations, the compliance
with stringent federal air quality standards, all suggest that that's
not the issue that it's been portrayed. If it is

(04:09):
an issue, work with OPPD. OPPD has tools and it's
tool belt that they can deploy as a matter of
local control. All we're saying is whatever tools that they
do deploy, don't actually take the generation offline, or at
least make sure that the power is going to be
affordable and reliable and by taking two an ore megawats
offline that those neither of those two things will be
the case. And so that's what we've said on the

(04:31):
air quality. I think we should take those concerns into account,
but ultimately the legislature has said affordability and reliability those
are north Star and that's what's got to guide this lawsuit.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
How involved is the Nebraska State executive branch and driving
policy for public power?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I would say very little least. I can only speak
to the Betwney General's office. Certainly we are very little,
very little. Are we involved, Well, that's not within our
policy portfolio? In general? What are what was squarely within
our policy portfolio? Or I guess that should say our
set of responsibilities isn't sure that state law and state
policy are followed. And this is exactly what we're doing here.

(05:11):
It's not really about energy, although that's a critical obviously
that's the focus of the lawsuit. It's really about saying
the public has entrusted a very critical public body with
certain authority, but also certain restrictions of what happened when
that public body, whether it's power or anything else, decides
that they're going to go and contradict or conflict with

(05:31):
the actual statutory and mandates as put in place by
the people's statewide or state elected representatives. And in that case,
that is directly within the Attorney General provin not out
there trying to push policy in the state legislature that
was decided nine years ago when public power statutes were passed.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Where does the where does this lawsuit? Where? And when
will it be decided?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Well, can be decided I think one or two ways,
one through the litigation process itself, which could take some time,
but separately, and I said this in my press conference
last week, Gary, I said, Look, I'm a pragmatic person.
We don't file lawsuits just to try to be punitive.
We don't file lossuites just to fight to the end.
What we want are resolutions to these types of issues.
And so I would extend my hand to OPPD and

(06:17):
if they want to have a pragmatic, foughtful conversation about this,
and we get to a place where these units remain online,
we could resolve the lawsuit that way, and that would
be my ultimate hope, is that we can work together
just to not have these particular units taken offline and
we can resolve the suits.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
District court right stayed in Nebraska.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, and Douglas County. So the filed right there, right
there in omahas of Omaha, taxpayers and rate payers will
have the opportunity to weigh in.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Oh, we're going to be three hundred meg a lot
hours short and twenty thirty.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Three only eight years away. Rosie.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
It takes about five years to build a nuke plant,
so we got a big problem on our hands. Be
nice if somebody important would do something about it.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
General Hildres, thanks for the time. I always appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Thank you.