The Public Service Commission resumed a prolonged hearing on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike this morning with disagreements over the utility’s corporate jets.

Testimony is expected to go through 8 p.m. tonight and finish up on Friday.

FPL Group Chief Financial Officer Armando Pimentel sat patiently as the hearing started just before 10 a.m. as both sides argued about accounting for plane flights.

Opponents of the increase questioned how the Juno Beach-based power company’s allocated charges for the jets and helicopters. They want to know whether customers are paying to ferry FPL executives, their wives and guests to destinations including Napa Valley and Louisville during the Kentucky Derby.

The hearings have gone on intermittently since August under a cloud of suspicion about possible conflicts of interest.

It’s not the first time the regulatory agency has been rocked by allegations of close ties with the utilities.

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Florida Power & Light Group Chief Financial Officer Armando Pimentel flew to Tallahassee on the corporate jet to appear before a panel considering the utility’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike.

Pimentel spent the day being grilled about the Juno Beach-based company’s request and about its corporate jets. Commissioners and opponents of the rate hike demanded answers about why ratepayers should foot the bill for FPL executives, their wives and their guests to jetset to places like Martha’s Vineyard, Las Vegas and the Louisville during the Kentucky Derby.

After nearly 10 hours of testimony, attorney Jon Moyle, who represents the Florida Industrial Power Users Group, asked the CFO about traveling to Tallahassee on the corporate plane.

“Did you have a concern when you decided to take the corporate aircraft up to provide your testimony that that might send a bad signal or a bad message to fly on the corporate aircraft up here to provide testimony to support a $1.5 billion rate increase?” Moyle wanted to know.

Pimentel wasn’t flustered.

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