Coalition Focuses Its Energy on Power Plant Support

By Jon Chesto; JON CHESTO

The Patriot Ledger

Several business groups, companies and labor unions have teamed up to form a coalition aimed at promoting the addition of power plants in the state and protecting existing ones.

The Massachusetts Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance aims to raise public awareness of issues surrounding a predicted shortage of electricity generation in New England and to lobby lawmakers and regulators to help increase local power supplies.

The group’s formation follows repeated warnings from ISO New England, the organization that oversees the region’s power grid, of the likelihood that New England will consume more power than it generates by some time in 2008. The Cape Wind project for Nantucket Sound is the only major power plant planned for the region, and the offshore wind turbine proposal faces a well-financed opposition.

“We’ve got some serious problems on the horizon,” said Robert Ruddock, general counsel for Associated Industries of Massachusetts, one of the coalition’s members. “At the end of the day, it’s about the economic health of the region.”

The cause has brought together Entergy Corp. and the Utility Workers Union of America Local 369, the union that represents most of the workers at Entergy’s Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth. Entergy and Local 369, who were opponents during labor negotiations in 2004, have joined the coalition.

“We’re just trying to get people to focus on a commodity that everybody just takes for granted,” said Local 369 President Gary Sullivan, whose Braintree-based union represents about 400 workers at the Pilgrim plant. “At the end of the day, if we can educate people about the energy needs of the region, everybody wins, including the public.”

Among the top priorities of the new coalition will be to build support for the relicensing of the Pilgrim plant, whose license expires in 2012. Entergy plans to file a request with federal regulators this month to extend the life of the plant for an additional 20 years.

“There is some self-interest here, but there’s a bigger picture,” said Entergy spokesman David Tarantino, whose company is providing some financial support for the new coalition. “The whole electricity infrastructure is really in trouble right now (because) nobody wants anything built.”

Ruddock said the group was formed within the past two months, but its creation was only publicly announced yesterday. He said he expects the group also will champion the need to build a second liquefied natural gas shipping terminal for Massachusetts to complement the Distrigas terminal in Everett. Ruddock said an increase in the supply of natural gas to the region might persuade developers to build a new natural gas-fired plant.

The group also said it plans to promote energy efficiency and conservation practices to help curb the region’s ever-growing appetite for electric power. The coalition is modeled after a similar business-labor partnership in New York that was formed in 2003.

Other members of the Massachusetts group include Back Bay Restaurants, the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce, Duke Energy, the South Shore Building Trades Council, the Norfolk County Central Labor Council and the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.

Jon Chesto may be reached at jchesto@ledger.com.