Utility regulators began today’s proceedings on Florida Power & Light’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike by saying “no” to two important items included in the 100-plus decisions related to the request.

The Public Service Commission refused to include a second year, 2011, in the Juno Beach-based utility’s proposal, knocking about $300 million off the rate hike request.

FPL was seeking a two-year increment in its base rate, about $1 million this year and $300 million next year.

Regulators said there is too much volatility in fuel prices and the banking industry to predict what will happen that far in the future.

The panel also turned down FPL’s request to continue making automatic adjustments in customers’ base rates when new plants or equipment other than solar or nuclear come on line. They said that gives the company too much leeway without oversight. A separate provision allows utilities to recoup construction costs for solar or nuclear plants outside of the base rate.

Still up for discussion: how much profit the state’s largest utility should be allowed to earn.

FPL President Armando Olivera is at the meeting.

From a U.S. News & World Report blurb about Rubio, the Florida Republican trying to derail Gov. Charlie Crist in the GOP U.S. Senate primary:

… there’s speculation in Washington that former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio would make a perfect 2012 vice presidential candidate. “If he gets here, he automatically becomes the No. 1 candidate,” says a former Bush adviser now associated with Sarah Palin.

The Florida Public Service Commission will spend the day deciding on how much – if any – Florida Power & Light Co. deserves of the $1.2 billion rate hike it seeks.

Today’s proceeding, expected to last until this evening, began with a discussion from Commissioner Nathan Skop about the Juno Beach-based utility’s requested 12.5 percent return on equity – profitability to shareholders – and how much money that would require for customers to pay.

Watching the debate today are a group of AARP seniors who traveled to Tallahassee from Daytona Beach. AARP opposes the rate hike.

Camp Marco Rubio is preparing to blast out to supporters today the video below, which is a response to the Charlie Crist video message that was released Tuesday.

At tonight’s Republican Jewish Coalition forum with the three GOP candidates running in a special Feb. 2 congressional primary, the most interesting question was the last, and it was only three words:

Crist or Rubio?

Joe Budd, Ed Lynch and Curt Price all declined to state a preference in the Senate primary.

Budd mentioned he’s “intrigued” by another candidate in the primary, former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith. But both Budd and Lynch criticized Smith for briefly endorsing Democrat John Kerry in 2004 to spite George W. Bush.

The winner of next month’s Republican congressional primary will face the winner of the Ted Deutch-Ben Graber Democratic primary and no-party candidate Jim McCormick in an April 13 general election to replace Democrat Robert Wexler.

Gov. Charlie Crist signed a death warrant for Martin Grossman, convicted of murdering a Pinellas County wildlife officer in 1984.

Grossman is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Feb. 16 at 6 p.m.

Grossman was 19 years old when he and a friend went to a wooded area in Pinellas County on Dec. 13, 1984 to shoot a stolen handgun.

Florida Wildlife Officer Margaret Park interrupted them and Grossman pleaded with her not to report him for having the gun and being outside Pasco County, both of which were violations of his probation for burglery.

Grossman struck Park on the back of the head when she tried to radio for help and his accomplice beat her.

Grossman, who was a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than Park, wrestled her gun away from her and shot her in the back of the head.

The Florida Supreme Court issued stays of execution for two other Death Row inmates Crist had ordered to be put to death. Including Grossman, Crist has ordered seven Death Row inmate executions since taking office in 2007.

Those cases are still pending.

FORT LAUDERDALE — Venturing outside their traditional milieu of tax-and-spending protests, about a dozen Tea Party activists and sympathizers stood at a street corner today to call for the ouster of Senate Majority Leader and amateur racial dialect theorist Harry Reid.

The event, billed as a “rally” Monday night and then bumped down to “news conference” status this afternoon, seemed to fall outside the South Florida Tea Party organization’s stated mission of promoting “three core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets.”

Not exactly, organizers said.

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Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has lost every straw poll of county Republican to Marco Rubio, his primary opponent in the U.S. Senate race (here’s a blog from the Palm Beach County poll in October), but Monday night might have been the most embarrassing.

Rubio won, 106-54, in Pinellas County: Crist’s home county.

It’s called a straw poll because it refers to the thin plant stalk held in the air to tell which way the wind blows, according to Safire’s Political Dictionary.

But Rubio’s campaign trumpeted the victory as a reaffirmation of his “timeless conservative principles.” Florida Democrats practically pronounced a time-of-death for Crist’s political career: “Stick a fork in him,” state Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff wrote in an e-mail.

Crist, however, isn’t so sure. He pointed out that he won plenty of straw polls before losing the 1998 U.S. Senate campaign to Democrat Bob Graham.

“I don’t put too much stock in it,” Crist said today.

Here’s an Associated Press analysis of the vote and the story from Crist’s hometown paper, the St. Petersburg Times.

Bob Butterworth, a Florida Democratic icon who served as attorney general, is backing Senate President Jeff Atwater’s statewide campaign for chief financial officer.

Atwater’s campaign sent out a press release about Butterworth and other Democratic supporters today, the same day Democrat Loranne Ausley, a former state representative, announced her candidacy.

Butterworth said there may have been some confusion about his endorsement of Atwater. When he wrote a $500 check to the campaign three months ago, Butterworth said, there wasn’t a Democrat in the race and he didn’t specify that it was for the primary.

“I probably should have been clearer with the aide. I don’t blame the campaign,” Butterworth said.

Back in 2002, Atwater, a relative unknown at the time, trounced Butterworth, then on the Cabinet as attorney general, in the election for Senate District 25.

Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican, also nailed down endorsements from three other Democrats today – James Harold Thompson, Lee Moffitt and Hyatt Brown, all former House Speakers. Moffitt and Thompson are now lobbyists.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, also a Democrat, is also supporting Atwater.

Butterworth’s latest endeavor places him as the fix-it man for Florida Power & Light Co. The Juno Beach-based utility hired Butterworth to try to repair its image in the wake of reports that company executives, their wives and guests flew on the customer dime on corporate jets. The revelations about the flights and other corporate spending came out as FPL seeks a $1.2 billion rate hike that will be decided on tomorrow.

Atwater’s campaign issued a press release about the Democratic supporters the same day former state Rep. Loranne Ausley, a Tallahassee Democrat, announced she is jumping in the race.

From Charlie Crist’s U.S. Senate campaign today:

UPDATE: Marco Rubio’s campaign accuses Crist camp of “rank hypocrisy:” “Floridians can trust Marco Rubio to go to Washington, stand up against the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda and offer a clear alternative. Floridians know they can’t trust Charlie Crist, Barack Obama’s favorite Republican governor, to do the same. See their press release here.

The former state House lawmaker from Tallahassee abandoned her run for state Senate today to enter the race to replace fellow Democrat Alex Sink as the state’s Chief Financial Officer. Ausley had been leading her state Senate opponents in fundraising, but the primary was a tricky three-way race that included a former Leon County schools superintendent and another former state House lawmaker.

Ausley becomes the front runner for the Dems CFO nomination. Joshua Larose and Ken Mazzie are already in, but neither appear to have raised any money. On the Republican side of the race, Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Insurance Committee Chairman Pat Patterson are competing for the nomination.

Ausley’s press release here.

The South Florida Tea Party organization, which until now has focused on such tax-and-spending issues as the $787 billion federal stimulus bill and the massive overhaul of the nation’s health care system, sent out an e-mail Monday night urging activists to come to Fort Lauderdale this afternoon for a rally demanding the “immediate ejection of Harry Reid from office.”

Senate Majority Leader Reid, D-Nev., is in apology mode this week after a new book revealed he had commented approvingly on then-candidate Barack Obama’s prospects as a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Republican congressional hopeful Ed Lynch, who has more than $1.3 million in federal tax liens against him and whose contracting business has been socked with $143,618 in court judgments since 2008, says he’s being punished by the federal government “for fighting for the rights of our veterans.”

Lynch says he’s been battling the federal bureaucracy since 2007 to receive about $5 million for remodeling work his DeLeon Industries did on a VA hospital in Miami. While waiting for the money, Lynch says he was unable to pay some subcontractors, who filed court claims against DeLeon Industries. That explanation was included in a column published today.

Later today, Lynch released a statement accusing the feds of delaying payments “because I refused to sit idly by and watch the V. A. Medical Center in Miami and its corrupt administration put our veterans’ health at risk while wasting taxpayer money.”

Read Lynch’s entire statement after the jump….

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State Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, finally cranked up his fund-raising operation for his GOP Senate primary against state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, during the final quarter of 2009. But Bogdanoff still outraised Domino 2-to-1 during the quarter and has a $336,626-to-$48,965 lead in overall contributions.

Domino has also put $110,000 of his own money into the primary to succeed Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach. Atwater is running for chief financial officer.

In another closely watched GOP Senate primary, Wellington Councilwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto raised $33,810 during the fourth quarter while Republican rival Sharon Merchant raised $14,449. Benacquisto has an overall money edge of $150,040 to $72,099.

Benacquisto and Merchant are running for the seat of attorney general candidate Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres. Democratic Senate hopefuls Peter Burkert and Kevin Rader hadn’t turned in their fourth-quarter reports late this afternoon.

Gov. Charlie Crist, Sen. Mike Fasano and Rep. David Rivera — all Republicans — summoned the media to the Capitol today to announce their support of a 10-day tax break on back-to-school items this summer (HB 483). The break had been canceled the past two years as the state faced historic budget shortfalls.

The state’s budget is expected to need another round of cuts this year. But it’s also a big time election year (Crist and Rivera are in GOP primaries), a point made in an off-hand joke during the press conference by Florida Retail Federation President Rick McAllister, who supports the tax break.

Rivera, whose Republican opponent, Anitere Flores, filed the same bill five weeks ago, had just finished giving reporters the Spanish version of his spin when McAllister took the podium.

“I’m not sure what Chairman Rivera just said, but I think it was ‘Elect Rivera,’” McAllister joked.

Crist jumped in and said, “It’s all good. He said, ‘Cut your taxes.’”

But McAllister pressed on with the joke: “‘Elect Rivera’ I think is what he said. Sneaky way to get that in.”

“Yours was much more overt,” Crist told McAllister while patting Rivera on the back.

State Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, says she collected $325,213 for in the first seven weeks of her gubernatorial campaign. The money came from about 1,000 donors.

Press release after the jump.

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After a strong response to his speech last summer at the RedState Gathering, Marco Rubio will address the Conservative Political Action Conference, the nation’s largest annual meting of conservatives, Rubio’s campaign announced today.

Rubio, the former House speaker challenging Gov. Charlie Crist in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, will speak to the group on Feb. 18 in Washington D.C. The conference is expected to attract up to 10,000 attendees.

“Our cosponsors decided to invite Marco Rubio to keynote this year’s conference because like previous keynotes Mike Pence and Paul Ryan, he is an articulate representative of a new generation of conservative leaders who we believe will have an incredible impact on the movement and the nation in the years ahead,” CPAC 2010 Chairman David A. Keene said.

Other speakers include Andrew Brietbart, U.S. Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty.

Florida Democrats are crowing over the amount of money they raised and how many voters they signed up in 2009.

According to this memo sent to party faithful this morning, Democrats have $2.6 million cash on hand, or about $1 million more than Republicans. The Democrats also extended their registration advantage to 800,000 over the Florida GOP.

“As you know, the Republican Party of Florida is currently imploding,” FDP executive director Scott Arceneaux wrote in the memo.

“But as Democrats, we can’t just pray the Republicans continue down their losing path; rather, we must get up and fight everyday for the future of Florida. In 2009, the Florida Democratic Party had what can only be described as our most successful non‐election year in our party’s history. Our efforts to strengthen the grassroots, hold Florida Republicans accountable, and recruit strong leaders to run for office moved Florida Democrats well down our path to victory.”

Sen. Dave Aronberg is questioning the state’s emergency readiness given the recent ouster of emergency management chief Ruben Almaguer.

Senate Military Affairs and Domestic Security Committee Chairman Aronberg, D-Greenacres, sent Almaguer’s replacement David Halstead a bevy of questions this morning about Florida’s ability to respond to a terrorist threat like the recently thwarted Christmas Day bomber airplane attack in Michigan.

Gov. Charlie Crist forced Almaguer to resign from his position as interim director of the Division of Emergency Management last week amid accusations of nepotism, misspending and sexism.

Almaguer, brought in as deputy chief to former DEM head Craig Fugate by Gov. Jeb Bush, last Monday refused to step down then resigned after meeting with Crist’s chief of staff Shane Strum and deputy chief Kathy Mears.

Almaguer says he was forced out by his replacement, Halstead, and that he has a “clean conscience.”

Crist refused to look into Almaguer’s alleged wrongdoing despite a plea from the ousted department official for an investigation.

Among the questions Aronberg wants answered:

Who’s responsible for audits of the division, which is located under the Department of Community Affairs?

A new book’s revelation that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was enthusiastic about Barack Obama’s presidential prospects because he is “light-skinned” and speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” created a firestorm over the weekend.

Republicans have blasted Reid and called for him to to step down from his leadership position while Democrats have generally circled the wagons in support of Reid.

Retired Lt. Col. Allen West, a black Republican running for a Palm Beach-Broward congressional seat, called Reid’s remarks “disgusting, despicable, and unacceptable. They are representative of how intellectual elite liberals do indeed speak of black Americans in their closed private spaces.”

But Debra Robinson, Palm Beach County’s only black school board member, said “I don’t see why it’s such an issue…I think that what he said was correct. My problem was he used the word ‘Negro,’ which is a bit outdated.”

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