Arizona Corporation Commissioner Andy Tobin called for an emergency summit to figure out ways to stop the shutdown of the Navajo Generating Station. Salt River Project, which is not regulated by the Commission, is considering shutting down its coal-fired Navajo Generating Station units when their lease expires in 2019 in order to find lower-cost natural gas energy elsewhere.
Commissioner Tobin wrote a letter to Salt River Project (SRP) President David Rousseau asking that they reconsider for the sake of the Navajo Nation the Hopi Tribe and other potential economic stakeholders which would suffer economically with the closure. Commissioner Tobin noted in his letter that nearly 3,000 Navajo Nation jobs are in jeopardy if NGS closes.
“Arizonans deserve to know how and when SRP determined NGS was no longer economical to operate. Further, SRP should explain its accounting of regulatory changes that might occur under President Trump’s administration,” Commissioner Tobin wrote in the letter.
“It is true that SRP falls outside of the direct jurisdiction of the Commission. There is no Order this Commission can adopt that specifically requires SRP to remain at NGS. We can, however instruct SRP’s partners at NGS (Arizona Public Service Company (APS) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP), and I may offer such a proposal in the very near future.”