Utility panel chairman: No one should tell us how to vote
by Dara Kam | September 14th, 2009Not even the governor should tell utility regulators whether to give the thumbs up to a proposed $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate hike, Public Service Commission Chairman Matthew Carter said today.
“I don’t think anybody should tell us how to vote on a rate case. We have to make our decision based on the facts presented. Each case has to stand on its own merit. To do otherwise would be violating the statute,” said Carter, appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2006 and up for reappointment by Gov. Charlie Crist next month. “I’m not going to do that for anyone.”
Earlier today, Crist said that the commissioners’ vote would impact whether he picks them for the panel. Two commissioners - Carter and Katrina McMurrian - are among the six finalists given to Crist by a nominating council.
“Let’s see what the commissioners want to do. Then I can have a better handle on who I want to appoint or reappoint,” Crist said.
The FPL rate hearing is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
On Friday, Sen. Mike Fasano asked that it be indefinitely delayed until investigations into possibly too-cozy relationships between the regulators and the utilities they oversee are complete.
Carter hasn’t made up his mind yet on whether to halt the hearing and said Crist’s comments won’t sway him.
“I make my own independent decision. And I’m not intimidated nor am I persuaded by anyone else. I have to stay focused on the law,” he said. “I’m not going to g o into a war of words with the governor.”
Tags: Charlie Crist, energy, Florida Power & Light, FPL, Matthew Carter, Mike Fasano, PSC, Public Service Commission, utilities
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September 14th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
right on, carter - tell crist where to shove it. that’s the problem here is that all these politicians like crist, lopez-cantera and fasano keep trying to inject themselves into the process for purely political reasons.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:54 am
[...] end Jan. 1. Crist, who must submit his nominees to a Senate committee for approval next month, had threatened that he would not reappoint them if they voted in favor of the increase. The panel will decide on the amount of the increase on Dec. [...]
September 19th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
It is appalling that anyone would wait on a decision to make a determination whether to appoint or re-appoint someone. How political can you be? If you made the original appointment, what kind of basis, what kind of research did you do on this individual?
Florida’s power companies have for a long while, gotten rate increases while doing little to be prepared for hurricanes, have done little to promote tankless water heaters, have done nothing to promote solar panels, have done nothing to promote wind power generators - all they have done is to raise rates and do the same things over and over again for fifty years.