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State regulators Tuesday will weigh whether to allow Florida Power & Light Co. to keep its employees' salaries secret. The Public Service Commission meeting in Tallahassee comes one week before regulators take up FPL's request for a $1.3 billion annual increase in base rates. Florida's five major utilities, including FPL, provided detailed salary information to the commission. But FPL and Progress Energy Florida, based in St. Petersburg, have asked to keep the information private for competitive reasons. A group of 15 employees from FPL - the state's largest utility with 4.5 million customers - hired an attorney this month and said they oppose disclosing salaries for privacy reasons. The First Amendment Foundation and the Office of Public Counsel - the state's advocate for utility customers - said state law requires utilities to make the information public.

State regulators Tuesday will weigh whether to allow Florida Power & Light Co. to keep its employees' salaries secret. The Public Service Commission meeting in Tallahassee comes one week before regulators take up FPL's request for a $1.3 billion annual increase in base rates. Florida's five major utilities, including FPL, provided detailed salary information to the commission. But FPL and Progress Energy Florida, based in St. Petersburg, have asked to keep the information private for competitive reasons. A group of 15 employees from FPL - the state's largest utility with 4.5 million customers - hired an attorney this month and said they oppose disclosing salaries for privacy reasons. The First Amendment Foundation and the Office of Public Counsel - the state's advocate for utility customers - said state law requires utilities to make the information public.

The Ethics Commission will hold a hearing Wednesday on charges that Nuclear Projects Office Director Bob Loux illegally raised his own salary. The meeting, however, is closed to the public and, under state law, commission director Patty Cafferata can't even confirm that there is a complaint against Loux. The complaint was filed by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert after Gov. Jim Gibbons issued a letter demanding Loux resign because he had raised his own salary and the salaries of his staff beyond legislatively authorized maximums. The practice had apparently gone on since 2005 and, as of this fiscal year, Loux was paying himself at a rate of $151,542 - $37,454 more than his authorized salary of $114,088. Over that period, he and others in the Nuclear Projects Office had received $195,790 more in salary than they were entitled to.

Think your job has its share of headaches? Presiding over Savannah River Site's environmental and tritium programs was worth a $570,008 annual salary for one top executive-and he left after just two years. The figure was revealed in a government Web site that tracks American Recovery & Reinvestment Act spending and requires major recipients to divulge salaries of their top five officers. The federal database shows that Savannah River Nuclear Solutions-the primary management contractor for Savannah River Site-has been awarded $1,407,839,884 in stimulus dollars, in addition to its scheduled funding for regular operations at the site, for which the Fluor-led group received a five-year, $4 billion contract that took effect in 2008.

Think your job has its share of headaches? Presiding over Savannah River Site's environmental and tritium programs was worth a $570,008 annual salary for one top executive-and he left after just two years. The figure was revealed in a government Web site that tracks American Recovery & Reinvestment Act spending and requires major recipients to divulge salaries of their top five officers. The federal database shows that Savannah River Nuclear Solutions-the primary management contractor for Savannah River Site-has been awarded $1,407,839,884 in stimulus dollars, in addition to its scheduled funding for regular operations at the site, for which the Fluor-led group received a five-year, $4 billion contract that took effect in 2008.

Individual payments of up to £1m have been handed out from the public purse as a "golden goodbye" to directors at the loss-making nuclear holding group BNFL, according to the latest set of accounts. David Bonser, executive director for human resources and a key figure in the development of BNFL's troubled Thorp reprocessing plant, received £1,046,350 compensation for ending his employment last month. That was on top of an annual salary and bonuses worth £577,112 for the 12 months to March 31, 2008. Two other directors left with well over £1m in combined salaries, bonuses and golden goodbyes as the company that once presided over a sprawling empire of nuclear assets was wound down.

With the unauthorized salaries at the Nevada Office of Nuclear Projects rolled back to the amounts set by the Legislature, the governor's office now wants the workers who got the money to pay it back. Director of Administration Andrew Clinger said those salaries, inflated beyond the authorized cap by more than $30,000 a year in two of the seven cases, were rolled back effective Aug. 25.

The financial compensation of top contractor executives in Oak Ridge, recently revealed as part of the Recovery Act reporting requirements, created a buzz of attention (Who's making the big bucks in Oak Ridge?). It also prompted questions from readers about how much the federal counterparts earn at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration: Below are some of the FY09 salaries for top execs at DOE and NNSA in Oak Ridge, including any performance bonuses received for 2008. Bonus info for '09 is not yet available. Here's the compensation for members of the Senior Executive Service at the NNSA's site office at Y-12 Ted Sherry -- YSO Manager -- $192,541 Kevin Smith -- YSO Deputy Manager -- $167,052. Here's the compensation for top officers at DOE's Oak Ridge Operations:

The financial compensation of top contractor executives in Oak Ridge, recently revealed as part of the Recovery Act reporting requirements, created a buzz of attention (Who's making the big bucks in Oak Ridge?). It also prompted questions from readers about how much the federal counterparts earn at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration: Below are some of the FY09 salaries for top execs at DOE and NNSA in Oak Ridge, including any performance bonuses received for 2008. Bonus info for '09 is not yet available. Here's the compensation for members of the Senior Executive Service at the NNSA's site office at Y-12 Ted Sherry -- YSO Manager -- $192,541 Kevin Smith -- YSO Deputy Manager -- $167,052. Here's the compensation for top officers at DOE's Oak Ridge Operations:

The Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission today unanimously accepted the resignation of Bob Loux as executive director of the state nuclear projects agency after recent revelations of inappropriate salary increases to himself and his staff. The commission allowed Loux to stay on until his replacement can be found. The process is expected to take at least six weeks. Loux apologized for the actions he took in the salary matters. He said he thought it would be best for him to step down so as not to be a distraction in the state's efforts to defeat federal plans to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Nevada Commission on Ethics Thursday cleared former Nuclear Projects Director Bob Loux of charges he broke the rules by raising his own pay. They did so on a 3-2 vote with the majority pointing out that the charges levied against him were wrong because they said he raised his own pay "above the legislatively approved" amount. Commissioners George Keele, Don Classic and James Shaw all agreed the legislature doesn't approve specific salaries for non-classified state employees in the governor's office. "It should have said, did he give himself a pay raise above the governor's approved salary," said Klassic.

Attorneys for Bob Loux, the embattled director of the Nuclear Projects Office, say he never intentionally or unethically used his position in raising his and other salaries in his office. "While he takes full responsibility for mistakes that may have been made and for errors in judgment, the allegations of improper or unethical conduct are faulty at their original premise," said the response to the Ethics Commission complaint by attorneys Judy Sheldrew and Tom Perkins.

ome work at Nuclear Fuel Services in northeast Tennessee has been suspended as the company implements a safety initiative. All the employees returned to work last week though work was curtailed in the production operations area, commercial development line and down-blending facility. The company, which employs about 800, also initiated pay cuts for salaried workers and is reviewing such cuts for others. NFS processes nuclear fuel for the country's nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers and also converts government stockpiles of highly enriched uranium into material suitable for further processing into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.

ome work at Nuclear Fuel Services in northeast Tennessee has been suspended as the company implements a safety initiative. All the employees returned to work last week though work was curtailed in the production operations area, commercial development line and down-blending facility. The company, which employs about 800, also initiated pay cuts for salaried workers and is reviewing such cuts for others. NFS processes nuclear fuel for the country's nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers and also converts government stockpiles of highly enriched uranium into material suitable for further processing into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.

Five years after the closing down of Bulgaria's Nuclear Power Plant's 1st and 2nd blocks and two since the closing of 3rd and 4th there isn't a single employee fired from both sections, "Dnevnik" daily writes Monday. There are 1095 people employed in the closed down parts out of the total 4492 in the whole AEC-Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. The plant currently produces power with its 5th and 6th 1000 MW blocks. The medium salary in the plant is around EUR530, as the money for employee payments is included in the final electricity tax consumers pay. "Dnevnik"'s Calculations show that for 2008 alone EUR6,500,000 have been spent for the employees in the closed blocks.

Gov. Jim Gibbons says the attorney general's office should be criminally prosecuting former nuclear projects director Bob Loux, rather than defending him before the state Ethics Commission. Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto told the governor her office was obligated to defend Loux if his actions were in "good faith" when he raised his own salary above the amount set in the law. The two clashed at a meeting of the state Board of Examiners Tuesday over a $20,000 contract for Masto to hire an outside lawyer to defend Loux before the ethics commission that meets March 12 to consider the case.

It probably will be late December before Gov. Jim Gibbons appoints a replacement for Bob Loux, who resigned as head of the Nevada office fighting a proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain. The state Commission on Nuclear Projects has set a schedule for advertising the $115,285-a-year job and holding interviews. Loux resigned when he was criticized for raising salaries for himself and his staff without authorization. The commission, chaired by former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, plans a Dec. 15 meeting in Las Vegas to interview finalists. The commission will submit three names to the governor after the interviews.

U.K. utilities risk falling behind with plans to build nuclear power plants because Middle East nations may use higher salaries to lure skilled workers, reactor builder Westinghouse Electric Co. said. "These nations have no legacy program to use as a source for nuclear expertise," said Adrian Bull, U.K. stakeholder relations manager at Westinghouse, a unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp. "If you have literally nothing to go on, you have to be the Chelsea or Real Madrid and buy in the people from elsewhere." Oil-producing nations including the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait plan nuclear plants to meet growing energy demand at home while exporting fuel abroad. The U.A.E. plans to select companies to develop an atomic power program by the end of this year and has a 2017 target date for completing its first reactor, the same year Electricite de France SA plans to start a new British nuclear plant.

"Documents show a former general manager of San Antonio-owned CPS Energy is getting about $390,000 in his settlement with the utility. Steve Bartley resigned Nov. 25 during the investigation into why higher-than-expected nuclear cost estimates to expand the South Texas Project were kept from the CPS board. The San Antonio Express News reported details Thursday based on documents obtained under a public records request. The newspaper reports Bartley will receive 15 months of base salary. He also will get credit for about 21 extra months of service to quality for an early pension and health coverage."