Commissioner Katrina McMurrian’s response to have her recused from the case is now online.

This morning’s Florida Power & Light Co. $1.3 billion rate hike hearing got off to a murky start despite Public Service Commission Chairman Matthew Carter’s insistence yesterday that the regulatory panel wants to conduct its business in the sunshine.

Commissioner Katrina McMurrian, who was asked by an intervenor on the case on Monday to disqualify herself from the case, was a no-show when the hearing began at 9:30 a.m.

PSC staff were unable to say where McMurrian was or whether she planned to attend the hearing.

About an hour later, McMurrian showed up with no discussion of the motion to have her step away from the case.

McMurrian sat on the panel for about 20 minutes before a copy of her motion denying the request to have her removed was available. It was only available by request and was not on the PSC’s website.

Stephen Stewart objected that McMurrian couldn’t be objective because she had was a panelist at a New York conference at which financing and credit issues related to the FPL rate case were discussed. Utility representatives had attended the conference but no consumer advocates were present, Stewart argued, so McMurrian could not be impartial in her vote on the rate hike.

But McMurrian said Stewart’s logic would put commissioners in a bind: they are supposed to be technical experts but wouldn’t be able to use any information that wasn’t purely objective to learn more about the issues.

That’s a paradox, she wrote.

“The media, both broadcast and print, continuously feature discussions about the general effects of economic conditions on businesses and consumers,” McMurrian wrote. “Even if I recused myself…I would still be the recipient of an unending flow of information concerning these issues, none of which can be realistically expected to be perfectly objective.

“Accordingly, I believe that the paradox presented by the motion is better resolved with more information, rather than less,” she wrote.

Tags: energy, Florida Power & Light, FPL, Katrina McMurrian, Matthew Carter, PSC, Public Service Commission, Stephen Stewart, utilities

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