The Senate quietly approved a measure designed to clean up the Public Service Commission with a 39-1 vote this afternoon.

The bill (SB 1034) would make public all communications between the utilities the panel regulates and the commissioners or their advisory staff.

It would also bar commissioners or high-level staff from going to work or lobbying for the utilities for four years after they leave the PSC, double the current two-year limitation, aimed at stopping the “revolving door” between the commission and the utilities they make billion-dollar decisions about.

The bill will make certain that former commissioners and staff “will not be able to continue what they’ve done in the past and for a change our consumers will be represented,” the bill’s sponsor Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, argued.

The changes come from a 1992 grand jury report that lawmakers largely ignored designed to keep regulators and utility representatives at arm’s length.

This year’s proposal came about in the wake of reports that PSC staff and a Florida Power & Light Co. lawyer were swapping secret BlackBerry messages. Other details about questionable relationships between FPL and the commission were revealed during Juno Beach-based FPL’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike hearing.

On the opening day of FPL’s rate increase hearing last year, Commissioner Nathan Skop revealed that the PSC’s lobbyist, Ryder Rudd, had attended a Kentucky Derby party at the Palm Beach Gardens home of FPL Vice President Ed Tancer. Rudd later quit.

Since then, the agency has struggled through investigations into BlackBerry messages exchanged between the PSC and an FPL attorney, a myriad of ethics complaints and allegations of interference from political leaders, including Gov. Charlie Crist, who threatened to not reappoint any commissioners who voted in favor of the rate hike.

The bill would also require that the commissioners behave more like judges by applying the canons of judicial conduct, including refraining from inappropriate political activity and avoiding the appearance of impropriety.

Public Service Chairwoman Nancy Argenziano is backing the proposed changes.

Utility regulators just chopped off another $150 million from Florida Power & Light’s $1.2 billion rate hike request. So far, they’ve cut the staff’s recommendation on the utility’s rate request - $357 million - by more than half, leaving less than $160 million on the table.

The Public Service Commission split on the latest vote - how much customers should pay to let FPL save money in the event of a storm. They’ve already got $215 million in reserve in case of a catastrophic storm. And they’re collecting almost $2.60 a month from customers to pay for past storm damages.

FPL had asked for $150 million a year for five years for a total of about $650 million. PSC staff said they should get $50 million a year.

Commissioner David Klement, newly appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, made a motion to reduce that to $25 million a year. That motion failed. Chairman Nancy Argenziano and Commissioners Nathan Skop and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens (also new to the panel) voted to grant the utility nothing.

“I’ve heard the voices of the consumers saying right now’s not the time to charge us for an unknown storm in the future. We can’t handle it right now. Current customers are still paying for the past storms. At a time when people can hardly pay their mortgages, I don’t think they can handle anymore. At this moment, my main concern…is that we alleviate what we can,” Argenziano said. “To say that we’re going to charge today for storms we don’t know are going to come to me is one I can take off the table right now and not have on the ratepayer.”

Public Service Commission Chairwoman Nancy Argenziano began her first day as head of the utility regulatory panel by suggesting that her colleagues conduct themselves like judges.

Argenziano, a former state legislator, took over as chairwoman this morning and Panhandle accountant Benjamin “Steve” Stevens was sworn in as the newest commissioner as the panel prepares to vote on nearly $2 billion in power rate hikes next week.

Argenziano kicked off this morning’s meeting by handing out the code of judicial conduct to the other four members of the PSC in an effort to place more distance between the commissioners and their staff and the utilities they oversee.

She wants all communications placed in writing and entered into the public record in cases pending before the PSC.

The quasi-judicial panel is considering imposing changes to its own ethical standards while awaiting possible legislative changes to how the commission operates regarding communications between the utilities and the PSC.

But Argenziano, a Republican from Dunedin appointed to the PSC by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2007, wants broader changes in the way potential commissioners are selected by a committee comprised largely of legislators. Those suggestions are then given to the governor, who makes the final decision.

Argenziano objects to the legislature’s influence on the selections because, she says, House and Senate leaders are dependent on campaign contributions from the utilities.

She wants the panel to become part of the court system and have commissioners appointed by either the Cabinet or the attorney general or a smaller group that would be more accountable to consumers, she said.

But lawmakers are unlikely to cede their power over the PSC, Argenziano admitted.

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A consumer-friendly former legislator with a reputation for bucking the system takes over as head of the panel that sets billions of dollars in utility rates, including a pending $1.2 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate hike request, today.

Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano will become chairwoman of the agency that will now bear the brand of Gov. Charlie Crist who selected four of the five members of the panel and reappointed one previously picked by his predecessor Jeb Bush.

Also new to the regulatory panel: Benjamin “Steve” Stevens, a Panhandle accountant and co-owner of a bar catering to the college crowd.
Stevens, Crist’s latest appointment, joins the PSC just a week before the regulators are set to make two important votes: the FPL rate increase and a $500 million Progress Energy Florida rate hike request.

Commissioner David Klement, a retired newspaperman who spent more than three decades as an editorial writer, joined the panel late in October.

Argenziano, a former legislator with a reputation as a feisty maverick unafraid of defying the status quo, has vowed to clean up the embattled agency blackened by allegations of improper communications and relationships between agency staff and representatives of the utilities they oversee.

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Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano

Argenziano will be the head of the PSC when the panel votes on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike shortly after she takes over.

The feisty Argenziano served in the legislature for more than a decade before Gov. Charlie Crist appointed her to the PSC in 2007.

“I appreciate the challenge and realize that the Chairmanship is purely an administrative charge. All PSC Commissioners are equal and independent appointees. Now, let’s get to work on the important decisions that lie ahead,” Argenziano said.

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The Public Service Commission’s inspector general won’t investigate Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, turning down a request from a business group backing Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike.

PSC Inspector General Steven Stolting told Associated Industries of Florida lawyer Tamela Perdue in a letter that he won’t investigate allegations of impropriety and impartiality revealed in BlackBerry PIN messages exchanged between Argenziano and former aide Larry Harris.

AIF should file an ethics complaint instead, Stolting advised.

Stolting’s office is restricted to “conduct oversight activities within the Commission,” he wrote.

Argenziano called AIF’s accusations “baseless” and “stupid.”

Read here about FPL’s connection to AIF’s press release demanding the investigation.

Utility regulators have added an extra day to hear testimony in the $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate hike case.

The base rate case is already into overtime and is running long past the original two weeks scheduled for early August, including several back-to-back 12-plus hour days of testimony.

The Public Service Commission was slated to finish the hearings on Wednesday and Thursday but this morning added Friday to the schedule.

Only four commissioners remain on the regulatory panel - former Commissioner Katrina McMurrian walked off the $133,000 a year job recently after Gov. Charlie Crist effectively fired her and Chairman Matthew Carter and appointed two new members who will take over on Jan. 1.

The Juno Beach-based utility’s rate case and Progress Energy Florida’s proposed $500 million base rate increase is shining an unwelcome spotlight on the agency that heretofore operated with little public interest.
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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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AIF President Barney Bishop

Bishop is demanding that the Public Service Commission inspector general conduct an investigation into messages exchanged by Commissioner Nancy Argenziano and her former aide Larry Williams that he said raises questions about her impartiality on an impending $1.3 billion Florida Power & Light Co. rate hike request.

AIF is supporting FPL, one of its business association members, in the rate case.

Bishop has put the thousands of messages - made available through public records requests by news agencies - on AIF’s website, but singled out Argenziano’s in a press conference this morning.

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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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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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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.

Florida Power & Light’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike 13-hour marathon hearing yesterday concluded with one head-injured FPL lawyer, an order for an independent audit of the utility’s corporate jet spending and yet another delay to hear yet more testimony next month.

Public Service Commissioner Nathan Skop demanded the audit to check into the Juno Beach-based utility’s fuzzy accounting for VIPs, their wives and guests who flew, some at customers’ expense, to far-flung destinations including Europe, Martha’s Vineyard and Louisville during the Kentucky Derby.

FPL will have spent at least $32.5 million between 2006 and 2009 on the corporate aircraft travel alone, its records show.

“It’s very important to me that the rate payers of FPL are not being allocated costs that are not prudently incurred,” Skop said.

The discussion of the executive’s flights revealed that FPL Chief Financial Officer Armando Pimentel flew to Tallahassee on the corporate jet, earning a rebuke from Jon Moyle, a lawyer for the Florida Industrial Power Users Group that opposes the rate increase.

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Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike hearing fizzled out at 10:55 p.m. this evening after a 13-hour marathon of testimony from FPL CFO Armando Pimentel.

Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano, attending the hearing by telephone, spoke up before the panel was set to take a five-minute respite.

“I really think this is wrong. 10:44 at night is not a good time for people” to be asking important questions,” Argenziano said. “I’m sure everybody there wants to go home.
That’s just not the way to do this. I have strong feelings that we may have pushed it too far or too late.”

PSC Chairman Matthew Carter, who’s had two back surgeries earlier this year, was in such pain late this evening that he went home after being helped out of the room by an aide.

Commissioner Lisa Edgar had already vacated hours earlier.

That left Commissioners Katrina McMurrian, acting as chairwoman, Nathan Skop and Argenziano to decide.

Argenziano won out in the end over FPL’s objections. Pimentel wanted to finish up because he did not want to have to return for the next round of hearings in late October, his lawyer said.

“We all want to get done. We’ve been at it more than 13 hours today,” said Sheffel Wright, an attorney representing the Florida Retail Federation that opposes the hike.

“I tend to agree with a lot of what’s been said. I think we are at that stage and we are getting a little overly tired and anxious,” McMurrian said, stumbling over her words. “I can’t even string a sentence together.”

She adjourned the meeting. The panel will reconvene on Oct. 21.

Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano’s former aide Larry Harris is back at work at the utility regulatory agency in the general counsel’s office.

Argenziano fired Harris earlier this month for giving his secret BlackBerry personal identification number (PIN) to Florida Power & Light Co. attorney Natalie Smith.

The PINs allow BlackBerry users to exchange messages that can be impossible to trace.

Two other commissioners - including Chairman Matthew Carter - put their aides, who make at least $84,000 a year, on paid leave until investigations into the messaging mystery are resolved.

Carter also banned the use of the PINs or other types of communication that don’t leave a public record.

Harris was reassigned to the general counsel’s office as a senior attorney where he now earns $60,000 a year. The PSC’s general counsel Booter Imhof resigned Friday. He gave two weeks’ notice and said he is going back to work for the House of Representatives.

The PSC’s lobbyist Ryder Rudd resigned earlier this month after it was revealed that he attended a Kentucky Derby party at the Palm Beach Gardens home of FPL VP Ed Tancer. An internal investigation could not prove whether Rudd, who oversaw staff handling several FPL rate requests, broke state law or rules by going to the fete.

The musical chairs at the PSC takes place during a $1.3 billion proposed FPL rate hike hearing. Progress Energy Florida is also seeking a $500 million rate increase. That case is scheduled to resume next week.

The Florida Power & Light Co. $1.3 billion rate hike hearing is droning on this morning as opponents to the increase grilled the utility’s expert witness Bill Avera on projected earnings and credit issues.

FPL reps sit in the audience, as they have each day of the hearing now more than a week into overtime above its planned one-week schedule.

But noticeably absent from the FPL pack is what until today had been their constant companions: BlackBerries.

Not only are their communication devices tucked away, their ever-present laptops sit idly inside their cases.

The change is likely due to the firestorm of controversy over secret messages called PINs exchanged between FPL attorney Natalie Smith and several of the commissioners aides. Critics fear Smith may have communicated with the aides during the hearings about the rate case under discussion.

FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana had this to say on the issue in an e-mail:

“Regarding pin communications what I can tell you is that Natalie Smith has never communicated via PIN with Commissioner Edgar or any other commissioner. With respect to PIN communications in general, these Blackberry-based text messages are not unusual nor any different than any other form of communication that isn’t paper-based such as a telephone call. In addition to those individuals you have cited, Natalie also has a PIN, for example, for Commissioner Argenziano’s chief advisor and had one for Commissioner Skop’s former chief advisor. Communication with staff members is a normal and appropriate part of the regulatory process in which all parties to any proceeding or issue regularly engage.”

Nancy Argenziano fired her aide Larry Williams for giving his PIN number to Smith. PSC Chairman Matthew Carter banned the commissioners and staff from using PINs or other types of messaging that don’t leave a public record.
He and Commissioner Lisa Edgar put their aides on paid leave indefinitely until a review of the PINs is complete. The panel is now considering requiring all communications between the PSC and the utilities be in writing.