UPDATE: Crist’s office says the state received a check today for $310,000 from Northwest Florida State College. That’s the balance of the $6 million the school was supposed to receive.

“Anyone is innocent until proven guilty,” Republican Gov. Charlie Crist said today when asked about a Leon County judge’s decision to dismiss key charges against former House Speaker Ray Sansom.

But Crist saw no problem between that statement and his own decision earlier this year to demand the college involved in Sansom’s trial return the $6 million in question.

Crist said his decision was appropriate and pointed out the entire case against Sansom has not been dismissed.

“There are more outstanding issues as I understand,” Crist said.

Asked if state Attorney General Bill McCollum should appeal the judge’s decision, Crist said, “that’s up to the attorney general.”

“I got enough on my plate,” he said.

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In an indication that Republican Bill McCollum might have a less-than-stellar fundraising total for the third quarter, his campaign spokesman Shannon Gravitte released this statement today:

“While our third quarter fundraising numbers are still being finalized, the published reports will show a combined total from the McCollum campaign and the Republican Party of Florida of more than $4.5 million. The collective emphasis this quarter on Party building to benefit all Republican candidates has been a tremendous success and we continue to meet all fundraising goals.

“Bill McCollum is the clear leader in polls, job approval and support across Party lines. With 13 months until Election Day, we are pleased with where we stand and hard at work to continue this early momentum.”

The Public Service Commission turned down Florida Power & Light Co.’s request to build a $1.5 billion natural gas pipeline and asked the Juno Beach-based utility to rebid the project.

After a day discussing the issue, the four-member panel agreed unanimously to close the case.

Today’s PSC decision essentially puts FPL back to square one and orders the Juno Beach-based utility to rebid the 300-mile pipeline that would supply natural gas to two new power plants in Riviera Beach and Cape Canaveral.

FPL did not show that their $1.5 billion pipeline proposal was the most cost-effective and reliable way to get the natural gas to the plants, the PSC ruled.

FPL President Armando Olivera, who flew to Tallahassee on one of the utility’s corporate jets to attend the meeting, disagreed.

“The Commission effectively denied the clear need for this investment and required that the entire process start over in order to go forward,” Olivera said in his statement. “All the evidence indicated that the Florida EnergySecure Line would be the most cost-effective and reliable method of increasing the supply of clean natural gas for our customers, diversifying the source of natural gas production beyond the Gulf of Mexico and enhancing the reliability of the electric system that serves half the population of Florida.”

The pipeline project would also have created 7,500 jobs and generated about $400 million in property tax revenues for the state, FPL contends.

Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell is endorsing Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, for attorney general. That’s a strong indication that Darnell’s friend and former hometown state Senator, Rod Smith, will not run for AG in 2010.

Smith is the former state attorney who prosecuted Gainesville serial killer Danny Rolling before becoming a state Senator and losing a 2006 Democratic primary for governor. He has been considering the AG race and would be considered a formidable candidate because of his statewide name-identification.

Smith today stopped short of saying he won’t run for AG, but noted that he talked to Darnell before she endorsed Aronberg.

“I have not made any announcement on this, but certainly when my friends are announcing their support for other people, it can be assumed that most of them don’t think I’m going to be running,” Smith said.

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Gov. Charlie Crist said today that he was “hopeful” the Public Service Commission Nomination Council would give him at least two familiar names to fill the vacancy left by Katrina McMurrian’s sudden resignation.

David Klement and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens were both recently named by Crist to the Public Service Commission to replace McMurrian and Chairman Matthew Carter at the end of their terms in 2010. With McMurrian stepping down three months early, Crist said he’d be “grateful” to have the chance to let one of the two start early.

Crist didn’t say which one he prefers, but said he hoped the nominating council would send him names by the end of the week.

“Getting an interim person there as quickly as possible would be beneficial to the commission to restoring more confidence in its work,” Crist said.

PALM BEACH GARDENS — After drawing big crowds to Tax Day protests, town hall meetings and a march on Washington, the Tea Party movement can’t rest on its laurels, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told a lunchtime gathering of activists here.

Armey, chairman of the Washington-based FreedomWorks group that has helped coordinate Tea Party protests, said conservative activists must continue to fight against an expanded government role in health care and then prepare for a fight on a cap-and-trade environmental bill.

“We’ve got the bad guys on the run,” Armey told a crowd of about 150 that crammed the patio of the Yard House restaurant.

“We have given the massive great big government takeover of health care a TKO for the time being. But they’re not going to go away empty handed,” Armey said.

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Here’s the latest installment in the seemingly perpetual Public Service Commission drama.

Sen. Mike Fasano today shot back at Associated Industries of Florida president Barney Bishop who yesterday publicly accused Fasano of interfering in the utility regulators’ business as the PSC considers three cases that could collectively cost Floridians up to $3 billion a year in extra energy costs.

Fasano yesterday asked Commissioner Lisa Edgar to resign because of an ethics complaint about her communicating with an FPL executive during a hearing. The ethics commission found no probable cause that Edgar, reappointed by Gov. Charlie Crist to the PSC last year, did anything wrong.

AIF supports Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike, and yesterday evening Bishop called out Fasano by name for trying to influence the outcome of that case and a proposed $500 million Progress Energy Florida rate increase.

“Any attempt by anyone to influence “due process”, whether they are an elected official or not, is inappropriate,” Bishop said in a statement.

That got to Fasano, who issued a statement demanding his own due process.

“Barney Bishop is a highly paid representative for utility companies throughout Florida. Mr. Bishop states that I am interfering in the due process that Progress Energy and Florida Power & Light are entitled to as the Florida Public Service Commission considers billion dollar rate increase requests. As anyone versed in the most elemental aspects of law should know, due process entitles one to face his or her accuser. Since Mr. Bishop, and Associated Industries of Florida, has stated that my involvement in this case is inappropriate, I challenge Mr. Bishop to publicly debate me on this issue,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, wrote.
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The Public Service Commission will decide whether to give in to Gov. Charlie Crist’s request to put off about $2 billion in utility rate increases later this month.

Crist asked the panel to postpone hearings considering Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.3 billion base rate hike and Progress Energy Florida’s $500 million similar request until next his two new PSC appointees come on board on Jan. 1.

PSC Chairman Matthew Carter, whom Crist passed over for reappointment last week, told Crist in a letter sent this morning that the panel would discuss his request at its next publicly noticed meeting on Oct. 27.

“To avoid claims of violation of due process, the parties to both dockets should be permitted to address your request,” Carter wrote based on the recommendation of PSC attorney Mary Anne Helton.

The PSC is right now preparing to vote on a $1.5 billion FPL natural gas pipeline. The cost for the pipeline would also be added into FPL customers’ base rate, but Crist did not ask for a delay on that vote.

The FPL vote on the base rate hike is scheduled for Dec. 21 and the Progress Energy vote is slated for Nov. 21.

TALLAHASSEE – Florida’s treasure chest – including a 13-carat solitaire diamond ring, Greek coins dating to 350 B.C. and a 100 ounce bar of silver – will be up for bid at the state’s annual auction of unclaimed property this month in Fort Lauderdale.

State CFO Alex Sink encouraged Floridians to check the Web site FLtreasurehunt.org to see if they could claim any of the items before the sale. She compared it to her childhood chore of digging through the couch for spare change for the family.

(more…)

That’s the total U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, has after collecting about $229,000 in the third quarter. He’s facing state Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, in a Republican primary for state agriculture commissioner, one of three Florida Cabinet positions and among the five statewide races on the ballot in 2010.

Read his press release here.

After a lengthy discussion this morning, the Public Service Commission decided to move forward with a vote on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.5 billion natural gas pipeline.

The state’s largest natural gas distributor, Florida Gas Transmission Co. LLC, asked that the case be terminated because of allegations of coziness between FPL and PSC staff. FGT wants to be the one to build the state’s third natural gas pipeline.

The PSC denied FGT’s motion but only after a review of an internal investigation into whether the staff was pressured into recommending that FGT’s request be turned down.

Adding to the confusion, the staff analysis recommended both approval and denial of the proposed FPL pipeline.

Commissioner Nathan Skop said he asked for an inspector general investigation into the matter because some PSC aides had complained to him that they were being “railroaded” into coming down on a particular side of the issue.

“Some staff said the discussions among staff in this case were unnecessarily hostile. One said, while conceding that arguments among staff are common, in this case SGA staff seemed to be trying to ‘censor’ views that differed from theirs and that the forceful tone of their argument was unprecedented,” Inspector General Stephen Stolting wrote in his Sept. 16 report.

The PSC’s director of the Office of Strategic Analysis and Government Affairs (SGA) Ryder Rudd abruptly resigned during the midst of the pipeline discussions on Sept. 7 after an internal investigation into his attendance at FPL VP Ed Tancer’s Kentucky Derby party.

“It is clear that the development of the staff recommendation in this docket was contentious and difficult,” Stolting concluded. “However, we found no basis to question the motivation of SGA staff or to support allegations of bias. Based on this conclusion, no recommendation is offered.”

Skop said Stolting’s report “watered down” some of the staff’s concerns but that it helped to balance the recommendations and that, without it, the alternative recommendation to deny the pipeline would not have been included.

“I don’t care how you want to cut it…that wasn’t going to happen. The likelihood was not promising,” Skop said.

UPDATE: Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, has also notified his chamber that local projects will not be included in the state budget. Atwater said the decision was due to “the continuing fiscal challenges our state is facing and our need to focus efforts on solutions to balance the state’s budget.” “I look forward to working together with you in seizing the opportunities and tackling the great challenges that lie ahead.”

It’s third year in a row members have been told they cannot request money for local projects because of the meager tax collections.

“We again hope to avoid creating unrealistic funding expectations in our communities given the continuing decline in expected state revenues,” state House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, wrote in a memo this morning.

Read the memo here.

U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said this morning his campaign collected nearly $1 million during the third quarter for his Republican primary race against Gov. Charlie Crist. (Including a $1,000 check from Karl Rove.)

Rubio raised about $650,000 during the first half of the year, raising questions about whether he could compete with Crist.

In a note from his campaign this morning, Rubio reminded donors that he is running to “stand for conservative principles and ideas.”

“This is a strong statement about the direction you believe our Republican Party, our state and our nation should take,” Rubio wrote. ” It is also an encouraging reminder about how piece by piece, supporter by supporter and idea by idea, we are building a movement that will only continue growing and gaining momentum as we move forward.”

Gov. Charlie Crist will replace Katrina McMurrian, who abruptly resigned from the Public Service Commission this morning, to fill out the less than three months remaining in her term.

Crist effectively fired McMurrian and PSC Chairman Matthew Carter, both appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2006, last week by refusing to reappoint them to the panel when their terms run out Dec. 31.

Crist’s general counsel Rob Wheeler asked the Public Service Nominating Council for a list of three recommendations to fill McMurrian’s place.

Wheeler asked the council’s lawyer Jay Vail to hurry up with the recommendations “so that there is no membership gap in representation on the Commission.”

There will be a membership gap beginning tomorrow, when the PSC – minus McMurrian, whose resignation was effective immediately – is scheduled to take a vote on a Florida Power & Light Co. proposed $1.5 billion, 300-mile natural gas pipeline.
(more…)

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.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink raised $1.6 million in the third quarter for her bid to be governor, her campaign reported today.

That brings the Democrat’s total fundraising to more than $4 million with more than a year to next year’s election.

Campaign experts estimate that Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum, the presumptive GOP candidate, will raise and spend upwards of $20 million each to replace Gov. Charlie Crist, who is leaving office after one term to run for U.S. Senate. Crist appointed his closest advisor, George LeMieux, to the post after U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez vacated it more than a year before his term expired.

More than 4,550 donors contributed an average $215 to Sink’s campaign in the third quarter this year, her campaign said in a press release. And she brought in just over $100,000 from online contributions.

Public Service Commissioner Katrina McMurrian, who quit her post this morning effective immediately, expanded on her resignation in a statement.

McMurrian refused to recuse herself from a vote on a pending $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate increase despite questions about her ability to be impartial on the issue.

McMurrian was a panelist at a New York City energy conference also attended by FPL executives, and went to a dinner also attended by an FPL executive.

Gov. Charlie Crist snubbed McMurrian and PSC Chairman Matthew Carter last week by passing them over for reappointment in favor of two inexperienced replacements.

Crist asked that the panel postpone the FPL hearing and another $500 million Progress Energy Florida rate increase proposal until his new panel takes over on Jan. 1.

“No doubt, I am an insider. I started out at the Commission in 1994. I grew up in this process, moving up from a Regulatory Analyst to a Commissioner’s Aide to a Commissioner,” McMurrian said in her statement.

“There are rules that govern all aspects of the Commission process. I know the rules, and I have followed them. But members of the public have spoken, and the Governor has spoken. They want a new set of rules… and new leadership. I respect that,” she wrote. “I recognize that this issue is much bigger than me. I don’t want to be a part of the problem – I want to help with the solution.”

Sen. Mike Fasano asked Public Service Commissioner Lisa Edgar to follow the lead of her colleague Katrina McMurrian and quit the regulatory agency now considering nearly $2 billion in proposed utility rate increases.

McMurrian resigned from the panel this morning effective immediately.

Edgar, originally appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2004 and reappointed by Gov. Charlie Crist last year, was the subject of an ethics investigation into whether she broke state law by communicating through her aide with a Florida Power & Light Co. executive during a hearing. The ethics panel found no probable cause that Edgar violated state ethics laws.

The PSC is now on the brink of deciding on a proposed $1.3 billion FPL rate hike and a $500 million Progress Energy Florida rate increase. Crist last week asked the regulators to hold off on the rate hearings until his new panel takes over in January. Fasano requested a similar postponement on the vote more than a month ago.

Fasano, a member of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee that confirms the governor’s nominees to the PSC, publicly opposed Edgar’s reappointment.

“As a sitting commissioner who has been privy to the ongoing day-to-day operations of the PSC, you know better than anyone that the PSC lacks leadership in this time of turmoil and crisis,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, wrote in a letter to Edgar today.

“I was a vocal opponent of your reappointment to the PSC and believe that time and subsequent events have only bolstered the reasons why I opposed your continued service on the Commission. I respectfully request that you follow Commissioner McMurrian’s lead and resign your seat as well. The PSC and its mission is far more important than any single individual’s continued employment,” he wrote.

Public Service Commissioner Katrina McMurrian quit her post this morning effective immediately.

Gov. Charlie Crist last week passed over McMurrian, who worked for the panel for almost a decade prior to her appointment four years ago, for reappointment. He also snubbed PSC Chairman Matthew Carter, whose term also ends on Dec. 31.

McMurrian has been the subject of criticism because she refused to recuse herself from a proposed $1.3 billion rate hike sought by Florida Power & Light Co. An intervenor wanted her off the case because her interactions with FPL executives at an energy conference raised questions about her ability to be impartial.

After cleaning house with his two new appointments last week, Crist on Friday asked the regulators to postpone any further action on the FPL hearing and another $500 million rate increase sought by Progress Energy Florida.

McMurrian’s resignation comes as the PSC is discussing the outcome of an internal ethics investigation about her behavior and other issues involving possible conflict of interest between the regulators and their staff and the utilities they oversee.

“The Commission has been asked to delay our vote on major cases until the new Commission is in place. I respect this request and want to ensure that the new Commission is positioned to set the course for the agency, one guided by different leadership,” McMurrian wrote in a resignation letter to Crist today.

After Jan. 1, Crist will have appointed all five members of the panel, including Commissioner Lisa Edgar, first appointed to the post by Gov. Jeb Bush. Crist’s latest picks – former newspaper editorial writer David Klement and Pensacola bar owner and manager Benjamin “Steve” Stevens – have no experience with utilities, tilting the panel away from those with connections to the energy industry or the commission itself for the first time in decades.

That’s when Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, a former state senator and vocal critic of the PSC, will take over as chairwoman. She’s asked state prosecutors to look into allegations of wrongdoing at the agency and wants a revamp of the way the PSC is organized.

PSC lawyers are still checking into whether the rate cases votes can be postponed in response to Crist’s request. Because he is not an intervenor in the case, he may not have standing to ask for a delay on the hearings.

Those who smoke — even in the privacy of their own homes — have been declared personae non gratae in Tax Collector Anne Gannon’s office. Citing health insurance costs, Gannon is no longer hiring anyone who admits using tobacco products in the past year. Current employees who smoke must quit or pay up to 20 percent higher premiums.

When the Florida Supreme Court upheld a similar hiring ban in 1995, then-Justice Gerald Kogan dissented, saying he feared such policies would create a “slippery slope” in which employers would have leeway to grill employees about other private, legal behaviors.

Gannon says that won’t happen in her office. Read about here it in this week’s Politics column.