Public Service Commission Chairman Matthew Carter wants everyone to leave him and his colleagues alone so they can get on with their jobs and has no plans to ask for an internal investigation into charges of possible conflicts of interest or bias against Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, he said today.

“Right now I plan on getting through this hearing,” Carter told reporters during a break in a nuclear cost recovery meeting now ongoing.

The panel is scheduled to vote later today on requests from Florida Power & Light Co. to charge customers $63 million for what the utility’s expenses on nuclear power plant construction and a similar $236 million request from Progress Energy Florida.

Yesterday, Associated Industries of Florida President Barney Bishop asked that PSC’s inspector general look into thousands of BlackBerry messages exchanged between Argenziano and her aide Larry Williams over the past two years. Bishop accused Argenziano of potentially breaking laws barring ex parte communications between regulators and the utilities and of breaking her oath of office in unflattering comments aimed at her colleagues.

Read about FPL’s link with AIF’s press release here.

AIF’s demand is yet another distraction for the panel also poised to vote on about $2 billion in base rate increases – $1.3 billion sought by FPL and $500 million by Progress.

Ten days ago, the panel turned down a $1.6 billion request from FPL to build a natural gas pipeline through 14 counties.

State Attorney Willie Meggs said recently that his investigators have found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing at the agency. And several internal investigations resulted in similar findings.
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Associated Industries of Florida sent a press release demanding an investigation of Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano to Florida Power & Light Co. for review yesterday, officials for both groups said.

A version of the release posted on The Sayfie Review shows the author of the release as “FPL_User” last saved by “Lisa Garcia” and the company as “Florida Power & Light.”

Lisa Garcia works for Ron Sachs Communications, the Tallahassee-based PR agency handling media for AIF on the issue.

AIF has joined FPL in support of its requested $1.3 billion base rate hike.

FPL is a member of the business backed association that refuses to reveal its membership or how much they pay to belong to the group.

The latest bit of drama in the FPL/Argenziano/PSC serial unfolds as the regulatory panel is scheduled to vote on the Juno Beach-based utility proposed $200 million rate increase to cover the costs of nuclear plants not yet built.

Sachs executive Alia Faraj, a former spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said that her shop crafted the press release and gave it to FPL.
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Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano dismissed a business-backed group’s demand for an investigation into her BlackBerry messages with her former aide as ridiculous and an attempt to intimidate her.

“It’s highly suspicious and rather stinky at this point,” Argenziano said.

Associated Industries of Florida President Barney Bishop today asked for a PSC inspector general investigation into thousands of messages exchanged between Argenziano and Larry Williams, a former aide whom Argenziano fired for giving his secret BlackBerry personal identification number to a Florida Power & Light Co. attorney.

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State Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera joined the call for an internal investigation into BlackBerry messages sent by utility regulators.

Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, serves on the Public Service Commission Nominating Council that selects who gets to serve on the regulatory panel. The governor makes the final picks.

“The PIN messages sent and received by Commissioner Nancy Argenziano and released by the PSC, coupled with their discussion of private emails so far unreleased and sent to non-public accounts in an attempt to evade public scrutiny, raise serious questions about Commissioner Argenziano’s impartiality and her ability to give a fair hearing to those appearing before her,” Lopez-Cantera wrote in a statement distributed to the media.

Earlier today, Associated Industries of Florida President Barney Bishop demanded the PSC’s inspector general check out Commissioner Nancy Argenziano’s BlackBerry PIN messages.

Bishop said Argenziano may have broken rules restricting communications between the regulators and the utilities and may have acted in a manner unbecoming a commissioner, a violation of her oath of office.

It’s no surprise that Lopez-Cantera has jumped on the Argeziano attack wagon.
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State Attorney Willie Meggs says there’s no evidence of criminal wrongdoing at the Public Service Commission but he hasn’t ended his investigation of possible violations of Florida’s broad Sunshine Laws.

His investigators “are about running out of things to do and people to talk to but at this point we have not found anything criminal,” Meggs said.

But he hasn’t yet shut down the investigation, the prosecutor said.

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FPL Group CEO Lew Hay and three other chief executives broke bread with President Barack Obama yesterday in the president’s private dining room.

But taxpayers needn’t worry about picking up the tab for the Hay and the bosses of Amazon.com, Kraft and Eastman Kodak.

The Wall Street Journal’s Elizabeth Williamson blogged that the four chiefs whipped out their credit cards at the end of a sandwich and salad luncheon “for the same price as the going rate outside the walls of the White House.”

It was the third Dutch-treat lunch hosted by the president at the White House, Williamson reported.

Obama’s no-free-lunch policy is meant to reflect the administration’s harsh view of coziness between elected officials and special interests.

That attitude is also reflected in Florida’s gift ban laws that make it illegal for legislators or their staff from accepting goodies of any sort – including meals, beverages and even after-dinner mints – from lobbyists or for lobbyists to give them.
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FPL Group CEO Lew Hay lunched with President Barack Obama and a handful of other Fortune 500 executives at the White House today.

FPL Group’s subsidiary, Florida Power & Light Co., has been in the headlines lately because of a contentious hearing over a proposed $1.3 billion rate increase and a $1.5 billion natural gas pipeline nixed by state regulators earlier this week.

Today, the Juno Beach-based power company agreed to pay $20 million in fines to federal regulators and spend another $5 million on itself to improve reliability of its electric grid after a 2008 blackout that thousands of customers in the dark for hours.

Lew along with Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, Eastman Kodak Co.’s Antonio Perez and Kraft Foods Inc.’s Irene Rosenfeld ate with Obama in his private dining room.

“The Administration has continued to seek the input of a diverse group of business leaders in order to hear directly from the private sector about key issues including the health of the financial sector, health insurance reform, climate change policy and job creation,” a White House press release on the meeting said.

Hay boasted to the president about FPL Group’s environmental achievements and Florida Power & Light’s plans to open the nation’s largest solar power plant later this month in Arcadia, FPL spokesman Mark Bubriski said.

“Mr. Hay had a great conversation with the President and fellow business leaders,” Bubriski said. “He also discussed his belief that forward-looking, clean-energy policies are vital to America’s economic recovery and FPL Group’s strong support for legislation to combat global warming and strengthen America’s energy security.”

Hopefully Hay got a warmer reception from Obama, a Democrat, than the cold shoulder Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has been giving the state’s largest utility.

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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.

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.

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.
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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.

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.”

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.

Public Service Commission lawyers are checking into whether Gov. Charlie Crist has any standing in asking for a temporary halt to two utility rate cases until his two new regulatory commissioners take over on Jan. 1.

Crist this morning asked Chairman Matthew Carter, one of the two current commissioners whom Crist passed over for reappointment, to delay the Florida Power & Light Co. $1.3 billion rate hike hearing and the Progress Energy Florida $500 million request until David Klement and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens take over.

Carter ordered his legal staff to figure out how to handle the governor’s request because he is not one of the intervenors in the case and may have no legal standing to ask for a delay.

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Gov. Charlie Crist is trying to put the brakes on two pending utility rate cases until his new appointees take office on Jan. 1.

Crist today asked the Public Service Commission to postpone any further hearings or decision on a proposed $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light rate hike and a $500 million Progress Energy Florida rate increase request.

Yesterday he named former newspaper editorial writer David Klement and Pensacola bar owner and accountant Benjamin “Steve” Stevens to the five-member panel that oversees the state’s public utilities.

The two will replace current PSC Chairman Matthew Carter and Commissioner Katrina McMurrian, whose terms end Dec. 31.

The PSC has been plagued by conflict of interest accusations for the past several months as the rate cases have progressed.

Gov. Charlie Crist opted for a Panhandle bar owner and a former newspaper editorial writer over two sitting Public Service Commissioners, putting a pro-consumer stamp on the panel for the first time in decades.

Crist picked David Klement, who spent more than four decades as a newspaperman and now heads the Institute of Public Policy and Leadership at the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus, and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens, a Panhandle accountant who is co-owner of the Cabana Nightclub in Pensacola, to join the beleaguered five-member agency.

Crist snubbed current PSC Chairman Matthew Carter and Commissioner Katrina McMurrian, both appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, who were up for reappointment and had hoped to remain on the panel now in the midst of two historic rate cases: a $1.3 billion rate hike sought by Florida Power & Light Co. and a $500 million increase proposed by Progress Energy Florida.

Renegade Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, an outspoken critic of the panel and appointed by Crist in 2007, will become chairwoman next year, meaning no more business as usual for the utilities that had strong support from the regulatory panel in the past.

Read the full story here.

Consumer groups applauded Gov. Charlie Crist’s choice of two outsiders to serve on the Public Service Commission shifting the balance away from a utility-friendly panel for the first time in decades.

Crist ousted PSC Chairman Matthew Carter and Commissioner Katrina McMurrian, both appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush and whose terms end Dec. 31, as the panel gets ready to vote on two pending utility rate increases, including a proposed $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate hike.

Instead, Crist tapped David Klement, who spent more than three decades as a newspaperman and now serves as director of the Institute for Public Policy and Leadership at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus, and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens, an accountant and chief financial officer for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.

The regulatory agency has come under fire for allegations of coziness with the industries it oversees as the FPL and Progress Energy Florida rate hearings are underway. Thus far, one PSC staffers has been fired, two more resigned and two have been placed on administrative leave in the aftermath of reports that some of the aides swapped secret BlackBerry messages with an FPL lawyer.

Here’s what consumer advocates had to say about Crist’s selections.

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Gov. Charlie Crist appointed two new utility regulators to the Public Service Commission, snubbing current Chairman Matthew Carter and Commissioner Katrina McMurrian.

Crist tapped former newspaperman David Klement and Escambia County Sheriff’s Office CFO Benjamin “Steve” Stevens and shaking up the status quo at the regulatory panel mired in controversy in the process of deciding on a proposed $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate hike.

The ouster of McMurrian and Carter makes it likely that renegade Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, an outspoken critic of the PSC who accuses regulators of being too close to the utilities they oversee, will take over as chairwoman of the panel next year.

Crist put Argenziano, a former state senator, on the board two years ago to represent consumers and his picks today of two new commissioners who have no ties to utilities mark a decided shift from a PSC that has up until now been viewed as utility-friendly.

Gov. Charlie Crist will announce one of his picks for the Public Service Commission this morning in Kissimmee, two days before his selection is due to the Florida Senate.

The announcement is a last-minute addition to Crist’s schedule. Crist is in Orlando for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Two current regulators put on the panel by Gov. Jeb Bush are up for reappointment as the PSC is mired in controversy over allegations of coziness between the regulatory agency and the utilities it oversees.

The PSC is in the midst of two rate case hearings, including a proposed Florida Power & Light Co. $1.3 billion rate hike. FPL said it would implement the rate hike before the PSC makes its final vote on the base rate case on Jan. 11.