Will People End Up Paying Higher Electric Bills with this Current Project?

A current misconception is that Cass County residents will end up paying higher electric bills because of this project.

Based on the intent of LB1261, that's not how the legislation is designed.

The bill allows a privately owned generation facility to be built alongside a new, large industrial customer to serve that customer's electricity needs. The legislation requires commercial agreements with Nebraska's public power utilities while preserving the utilities' exclusive right to provide electric service. It is structured so the new industrial load is supported by its own generation rather than relying solely on existing public power resources.

Why does that matter?

Without this type of arrangement, adding a customer that uses an enormous amount of electricity could require significant new infrastructure or generation capacity. LB1261 was created to provide another option—one intended to allow those costs to be associated with the private project instead of automatically falling on existing residential and business customers.

In simple terms:

+ The project is intended to pay for its own power generation.

+ Existing Nebraska ratepayers are not intended to finance the construction of a private power plant for a new industrial customer.

+ Any excess electricity produced may be sold onto the public grid through agreements with Nebraska's public power system.

As always, our goal is not to advocate for or against the project. We're here to provide factual information so residents can better understand what the legislation says and ask informed questions