A vote tomorrow on whether Florida Power & Light Co. should get the thumbs up on a proposed $1.5 billion natural gas pipeline should go on, staff for the regulatory panel recommended today.

Florida Gas Transmission Co. LLC, the state’s largest natural gas transmission provider, asked the Public Service Commission to dismiss the FPL case because of the appearance of improper relationships shared by the Juno Beach-based utility and the regulators.

The PSC’s lobbyist Ryder Rudd resigned after an internal investigation into possible misconduct after Rudd admitted he attended a Kentucky Derby party at the Palm Beach Gardens home of FPL VP Ed Tancer. Rudd had a hand in analyzing FPL’s proposed 300-mile pipeline.

FGT objected that the process should start anew and that the commission should consider FPL’s proposal after an “untainted” staff support process.

Instead, PSC staff today recommended moving forward with tomorrow’s vote.

The staff’s analysis “provides primary and alternate recommendations on the most controversial issues in the case, and it provides a wide variety of options for the Commission’s consideration. It is perhaps the best evidence of the full and fair review that the staff conducted in the case, whether contentious along the way or not,” the recommendation reads.

Tags: FGT, Florida Gas Transmission, Florida Power & Light, FPL, natural gas, PSC, Public Service Commission, Ryder Rudd

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Public Service Commission. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.