Amid growing pressure from Georgia lawmakers and utility customers, co-owners of the Plant Vogtle expansion are expected to vote Monday on whether to continue the last remaining nuclear project in the U.S.

About halfway constructed, Vogtle’s two new reactors are five years behind schedule and more than $13 billion over budget. The latest cost increase of $2.3 billion, announced in August, triggered the upcoming vote by co-owners Oglethorpe Power (30 percent), the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) (22.7 percent), and Dalton Utilities (1.6 percent). Georgia Power, with 45.7 percent ownership, has already decided to continue. Under their operating agreement, 90 percent of the ownership must agree for the project to continue.

Georgia Power indicated last month its shareholders will cover some of its portion of the latest cost overrun, but the other owners are electric co-ops structured so that ratepayers effectively own the company. They’ll have to raise rates to cover their share of the costs.

The Jacksonville Electric Authority, which contracted to buy power through MEAG, wants out of the deal. It filed a complaint with MEAG and a petition with federal regulators, as well as outlining how abandoning the project would save its customers money. JEA also launched a high profile public relations assault on Vogtle, putting up billboards in Georgia attacking the project as a “$30 billion mistake” and taking out full page ads in newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal Constitution, headlined “Plant Vogtle Will Cost You.”

Georgia Power wants the partners to stick with its current plan.

"A year ago, Georgia Power and all of the Vogtle co-owners entered a new contract to move forward with the project and everyone acknowledged and accepted all possible risks," Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft wrote in an email. "Georgia Power has voted to move forward, and we hope the co-owners will also vote in favor to fulfill their obligation."

They have backing from Gov. Nathan Deal, who in a letter to Georgia Power urged all the co-owners to move forward, saying the project’s “current and future economic impact to our state is significant and 6,000 plus jobs in Burke County alone are tremendous.”

Tim Echols, vice-chair of the Georgia Public Service Commission, reiterated the emphasis on jobs.

"Gov. Deal is right in saying that Vogtle's biggest benefit right now is the massive economic development impact in the region providing almost 7,000 jobs," he wrote in an email. "Even with the continued support our commission has shown for the project, the plant's destiny is now in the hands of the co-owners."

But Sara Barczak of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy rejected that defense of the project.

“The expansion of Plant Vogtle is not a make-work project," she wrote in an email noting that the construction jobs would be gone already if the project had been completed on schedule in 2017. "The PSC is not required to guarantee that thousands of jobs stay in Georgia at the expense of electricity customers.”

Georgia lawmakers have weighed in, too, looking for a limit to the project's spiraling cost. On Wednesday, 17 members of the General Assembly from districts within MEAG’s service territory sent a letter to the Vogtle co-owners saying that if Georgia Power’s parent Southern Company passed along its costs to shareholders it places a “disproportionate cost burden on EMC and city utility customers.“

“Please ensure prior to voting in support of moving forward as required by the amended Co-Owners Agreement, that a cost cap is established that protects all Georgia electric ratepayers from this and future overruns,” they wrote.

PSC races

The high profile of the Vogtle squabble spotlights the two PSC seats on the ballot in November. The five-member panel, which regulates the rates Georgia Power charges, is elected statewide for a six-year term on a rotating basis. Districts 3 and 5 are up this year.

Current District 3 PSC Commissioner Chuck Eaton took a wide view saying more nuclear will be a boon to the state. He didn't address a cap.

“Gov. Deal has repeatedly said that Georgia's low-cost and high-reliability electric supply is a competitive advantage in creating and attracting jobs," he wrote in an email. "With more than 700,000 new jobs and Georgia's unemployment rate nearing a historic low level and below the national average, I'd say the proof is in the pudding.

“The average Georgia family's electric bill is less today than it was seven years ago. Having a solid foundation of nuclear power has helped Georgia keep rates and bills low without sacrificing reliability. Just as the current reactors at Plant Vogtle have enabled Georgia's booming economy today, so will units 3 and 4 power our economy, providing low-cost, high-reliability power, and a competitive advantage over other states for the next generation.”

Georgia Power's Kraft said a "typical" customer pays 58 cents less per month now, exclusive of tax, than they did in 2011.

But statistics from the federal Energy Information Administration dispute the claim that electric bills are lower, Barczak said. Her organization's analysis of EIA data indicates the average residential bill was $83 higher, a 5.6 percent increase, in 2016 (the most recent year final data is available) compared to 2010. Moreover, low natural gas prices and low interest rates, both factors beyond the PSC's control, mitigated what would have been even bigger Vogtle sticker shock since customers began paying for the Vogtle expansion in 2011, she said.

Unlike Republican Eaton, his opponent, Democrat Lindy Miller, is focused on a cap.

"Since Westinghouse went bankrupt in 2017, our Public Service Commissioners have repeatedly voted to let this project continue with no cap on costs or protections for Georgians," she wrote in an email. "With Vogtle now billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, Georgia’s working families and small businesses are paying for corporate mistakes and a lack of substantive regulatory oversight. This is another story of Wall Street versus Main Street. We need commissioners who will fight for the public interest and protect consumers, instead of writing blank checks to special interests with our money. I applaud the members of the legislature who are joining our push for greater accountability in this project."

The Democratic candidate for District 5, Dawn Randolph, isn't expecting Georgia Power to impose that cap on itself.

"Relying on Georgia Power to place a cap on the project is ludicrous – it’s like taking Cookie Monster to the Keebler Elves Factory and telling him not to eat anything," she wrote in a prepared statement.

Calling the current PSC negligent, she said the Vogtle expansion is an example of a regulated utility making unneeded capital investments in order to increase its profits. She vowed to work with the General Assembly to secure a legislative fix if elected.

She'd do so "not only to cap the cost of the project, but also to clawback the profit, approximately $200 million or more – Georgia Power will receive just off of the loans,” she wrote.

Randolph's opponent, Commissioner Tricia Pridemore, a Republican, was appointed by Deal to the seat vacated by Stan Wise in early 2018 after the then-chairman shepherded through the decision to continue building Vogtle. She did not respond to two requests for comment.

The vote by MEAG and Oglethorpe Power is expected Monday.