Callaway Nuclear Plant.

Ron Richard, the Joplin Republican who is the new speaker of the Missouri House, last week unveiled what he and his fellow GOP lawmakers are calling the “Family Recovery Plan.”
Here’s how it would help Missouri families recover: It would repeal a law that protects them from being overcharged by utilities.
To be fair, that’s not the whole idea. There’s also the vague promise of a “modest” tax cut (at a time when the state faces hundreds of millions in revenue shortfalls) and a great deal of obfuscation about creating jobs. But it’s a smoke screen.
The fact is that under Mr. Richard’s plan, electric customers soon would start paying higher rates for a nuclear power plant that won’t begin generating electricity for a decade or more. That’s a utility version of the permanent seat license scam: Pay now for the chance to buy electricity in the future at what are certain to be higher rates. Such a deal.

The consumer protection law Mr. Richard wants to repeal was overwhelmingly approved by voters during the 1970s. It prohibits utilities from charging customers for the cost of building new facilities until those power plants begin generating electricity. It’s commonly known as an anti-CWIP law, with CWIP standing for “construction work in progress.”
It was enacted to give utilities an incentive to build new plants as efficiently as possible by making them shoulder the risks of cost overruns and poor management. Given the utilities’ monopoly status, it’s one of the few available tools to protect consumers from being overcharged on plant construction.
Since last year, St. Louis-based Ameren Corp., parent company of AmerenUE, has been lobbying aggressively — and handing out campaign contributions — to overturn the law that Mr. Richard proposes to repeal. Among the recipients was Mr. Richard, who received $7,000 from the utility’s political action committee.
It distributed more than $135,000 to various politicians during the third quarter of 2008 alone. While it was spreading the money around, Ameren continued to insist that it has made no final decision to build a second nuclear plant adjacent to its Callaway 1 plant near Fulton in Callaway County.

Final decision or not, Ameren has filed a construction application with federal officials. And it has asked the Public Service Commission for permission to charge customers millions of dollars for expenses related to the application.
Mr. Richard portrays repeal of the consumer protection as a job-creation tool. What he and Ameren both have failed to address is the best way to finance a plant; repealing the protection won’t provide any more jobs than finding alternative financing would.
On the other hand, suddenly raising electric rates in the midst of a serious recession could cost many more jobs — especially when businesses and families won’t get a single watt of power from the higher rates for a decade.
The best way to explore financing for a new power plant is with hearings before the PSC. But Ameren blocked efforts to hold such hearings last year when consumer groups asked for them. Now, with Gov.-elect Jay Nixon poised to take office at noon Monday, the PSC should reconsider. Mr. Nixon should insist on it.