House defeats move to bar ratepayer recovery for small modular reactor planning; approves higher tech-customer share in utilities bill

Representative Pierce offered a string of amendments to House Bill 1007 on Tuesday, pressing the House to limit how utilities can shift financial risk for small modular reactors, or SMRs, onto ratepayers.

Pierce framed his main proposal as a protection for utility customers, arguing utilities should keep “skin in the game” rather than passing speculative planning and construction costs to ratepayers. “If they go through that process and they expend millions of dollars... and they decide, you know what, it just doesn't make sense to do, the current bill is written, allows the utility to recover from the rate payer,” Pierce said while urging support for his amendment.

The House voted 29 in favor and 69 opposed to Amendment 1, which would have removed a provision permitting utilities to recover planning costs for SMR projects that are never built; the amendment was defeated. The House then considered, and adopted by voice, a separate amendment that raises the required contribution by a large technology customer for expedited approval of new generation from 75% to 80%.

Why it matters: The exchanges centered on whether the state should help create incentives for SMR…