Plant Vogtle owners get Toshiba payments
Georgia Power, Dalton Utilities and other owners of Plant Vogtle in Georgia got $300 million in payments Monday from Toshiba for failing to complete the nuclear expansion project near Waynesboro, Ga.
The payments, including $137 million for Georgia Power which is overseeing construction at Vogtle, is the first of of $3.68 billion Toshiba is scheduled to provide and “is a positive indication of Toshiba’s commitment to meeting its financial obligation,” Georgia Power said.
Toshiba, the parent of bankrupt Westinghouse Corp., designed and was hired to build two next generation reactors at Plant Vogtle.
Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the new units, with the project’s other Georgia-based co-owners including Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power and Dalton Utilities. On Aug. 31, Georgia Power filed a recommendation with the Georgia Public Service Commission to continue construction of the Vogtle nuclear expansion supported by all the project’s other co-owners.
Senate confirms Ajit Pai for FCC chairman
The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission despite Democratic complaints that Ajit Pai will undermine net neutrality.
The vote was 52-41 on Monday for Pai, who has served as a commissioner at the FCC since 2012.
The nomination turned into a proxy fight over Obama-era net neutrality rules established in 2015. Those rules mean service providers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast must treat all content the same and not favor their own websites and apps over others, such as a movie streaming service. Pai has tried to roll the rules back, drawing more than 22 million comments and ire from Democrats.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., warned that Pai “will do an enormous amount of damage to one of the foundational principles of the internet – net neutrality.”
Equifax says more affected by hack
Credit report company Equifax said Monday an additional 2.5 million Americans may have been affected by the massive security breach of its systems, bringing the total to 145.5 million people who had their personal information accessed or stolen.
Equifax said the company it hired to investigate the breach, Mandiant, has concluded its investigation and plans to release the results “promptly.”
The information stolen earlier this year included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses – the kind of information that could put people at significant risk for identity theft.
The update comes as Equifax’s former CEO, Richard Smith, who announced his retirement last month, will testify in front of Congress starting today. In prepared testimony, he apologized and said human error and technology failures allowed the data breach.
“To each and every person affected by this breach, I am deeply sorry that this occurred,” Smith said in his prepared remarks. “The company failed to prevent sensitive information from falling into the hands of wrongdoers.”
Wells Fargo CEO apologizes to Congress
Wells Fargo’s chief executive will face Congress saying the bank remains “deeply sorry” for its previous sales practices, and that in the year since the scandal over them exploded it has substantially changed for the better.
The prepared comments from Tim Sloan come ahead of his scheduled appearance in front of the Senate Banking Committee today, about a year since his predecessor did the same and was grilled about the sales practices.
Wells Fargo has said 3.5 million accounts were potentially opened without customers’ permission between 2009 and 2016, as employees tried to meet ambitious sales targets. The scandal was the biggest in Wells Fargo’s history.
“I apologize for the damage done to all the people who work and bank at this important American institution,” Sloan said in his prepared comments.