UPDATE: Read the story from The Palm Beach Post on here

The last day of Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike hearing is winding down late as its final expert gets grilled over the biggest sources of contention in the case – depreciation and how much profit the company should be allowed.

FPL consultant Terry Deason, who served 16 years on the Public Service Commission, spent hours answering questions about an agreement he was part of in 2002 that, opponents say, wound up costing costing customers at least $1.25 billion than it should have.

FPL is paying Deason, a registered lobbyist who represents four of the state’s investor-owned utilities including FPL, $400 per hour to testify and $295 per hour for his advice.

Deason was a commissioner when the PSC agreed to allow FPL to collect $125 million a year from customers for depreciation expenses.

Since then, FPL’s own study found the company has collected at least $1.25 billion more than it should have.

The state’s consumer advocate believes that amount should be $2.7 billion.

The PSC signed off on the agreement at the time, Deason said, because it was unknown if Florida would deregulate utilities.

That never happened, but the 2002 agreement and another in 2005 set the depreciation rates in stone and deviated from normal accounting practices which would have spread out the costs over the lifetime of the equipment.

That’s what the Juno Beach-based company wants to do now, over the objections of the state’s consumer advocate.

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UPDATE: Read the story from The Palm Beach Post on here

Enough already.

Public Service Commission Chairman Matthew Carter pronounced that Florida Power & Light Co.’s prolonged $1.2 billion rate hike case will wrap up tonight. Period.

“We will finish tonight, ladies and gentlemen,” Carter said before adjourning for lunch.

“Everything that needs to be said has pretty much been said. How many more times can you say the same thing?” Carter told The Palm Beach Post shortly after the lunch break began.

Expect some fireworks when the hearing resumes at 2:30.

FPL Group Controller Mike Davis is going to get a grilling on the utility’s proposal to charge customers $3.7 million of the $5 million it estimates it will spend to persuade the PSC to grant its rate hike.

Some of the expenses incurred so far include $1.4 million for consultants, $450,996 for legal services, $214,632 for lodging and $143,232 for meals over a nearly two-year period.

Carter can’t be blamed for wanting the FPL case, sidetracked by what he called “shenanigans” over allegations of conflicts of interest, to come to a halt.

He was absent yesterday because of complications from two back surgeries he’s had this year.

Carter’s got a little more than two months left in his term after Gov. Charlie Crist passed him over for reappointment earlier this month.

The panel will come back at 2:30, a half hour before the newest regulator, David Klement, is sworn in in Sarasota.

Klement, a former newspaper editorial writer, will be in Tallahassee on Tuesday to vote on whether the PSC should decide on FPL’s rate case this year or wait until another new Crist appointee – Pensacola accountant and bar owner/manager Benjamin “Steve” Stevens – joins the PSC on Jan. 1.

The Public Service Commission and opponents of Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike grilled the utility’s officials about stacking the deck at customer service hearings throughout the day and into the evening yesterday.

FPL Customer Service VP Marlene Santos conceded that the Juno Beach-based utility methodically rounded up dozens of commercial customers – many of whom were recipients of FPL’s charitable gifts – to attend the hearings to tell regulators how great FPL is and that the company deserves the boost.

But just before the hearing ended around 7:30 p.m., FPL lawyers produced documents showing that their opponents employed the same tactics.

Acting Chairwoman Lisa Edgar allowed the last-minute filings over the objections of rate hike opponents.

“We urge you to attend the hearing in your area and speak out against FPL’s requests,” read a June e-mail from the Florida Retail Federation to its members. AARP’s Florida director urged the same of that group’s members in an August article on the group’s Web site.

Today’s hearing kicked off on time at 9:30 but it’s unclear if it will finish up on time late this evening as scheduled.

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Gov. Charlie Crist appointed former newspaperman David Klement to fill a vacancy on the Public Service Commission.

Klement fills a vacancy created when former Commissioner Katrina McMurrian quit after Crist passed her over for reappointment.

Klement’s getting a jump on the $133,000 a year job – Crist had already picked him and Pensacola accountant and bar owner/manager Benjamin “Steve” Stevens to the panel. Their terms are set to begin Jan. 1.

Klement will be on the five-member panel in time to vote next week on whether the PSC should postpone a vote on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.2 billion rate hike and a similar $500 million increase sought by Progress Energy Florida.

Crist asked that the panel hold off on the hearings and the votes on the rate cases until his new regulators are ensconced next year. But the PSC resumed the FPL case yesterday and is slated to finish up with it late tomorrow.

Klement 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.

Klement, 69, worked for 32 years at The Bradenton Herald.

He said earlier this month that he would bring his broad knowledge base to the panel.

“While I’m not a specialist, as many of them are, you need a generalist who understands more than how to balance the books or how to wire a house for electricity,” Klement said.

Florida Power & Light Co. has spent nearly $4 million so far in its $1.2 billion rate hike request and expects to spend another $1 million before the case is over.

The Juno Beach-based utility originally expected to spend about $3.7 million on the case, according to records filed with the Public Service Commission.

But extra days have been repeatedly added to the case, originally scheduled to last two weeks back in August. It’s now supposed to wind up on Friday.

FPL spent about $1.5 million on consultants, $787,774 on overtime for FPL professional staff and another $450,996 for legal services, its records show.

And the company spent $523,815 thus far on employee-related expenses and $521,646 for other services, including nearly $340,000 on temporary help.

FPL is asking that customers pay for the original $3.7 million included in its rate hike request.

An FPL spokesman said the power company will not ask customers to fork over the extra $1.3 million it expects to spend on the case.

The filing includes total expenses from January 2008 through September 2009 and a projection for total costs through the end of the proceeding.

The hearing is supposed to finish tomorrow and the panel is expected to cast its final vote on the rate proposal on Jan. 11.

Florida Power & Light Co. officials take the stand this morning to defend their proposed $1.2 billion rate hike before the Public Service Commission.

Yesterday, the Juno Beach-based utility knocked off about $53 million – less than 4 percent – from its original rate request.

Testimony yesterday also revealed that the company’s director of compensation had no idea what the average Floridian’s wage is although she’s in charge of ensuring that FPL wages are fair.

That’s not to say Slattery didn’t provide some brilliant answers regarding benchmarks of salaries in the utility industry, on which FPL bases its compensation.

The average annual salary of the utility’s 12,000 workers is more than $90,000 Kathleen Slattery told the panel.

The average Floridian’s wage is about $40,000, something Slattery did not know.

She also was unaware that state workers have not received a pay raise in three years.

But Slattery did tell the panel that FPL workers are scheduled to get between 2.4 percent and 3.4 percent pay hikes over the next two years.

That’s skewed because more than 440 FPL employees pull down more than $165,000.

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Five Florida Power & Light Co. executives brought in more than $1 million in 2008, an FPL official testified today.

FPL Director of Compensation Kathleen Slattery told the Public Service Commission that three of the utility’s highest paid executives earned $3 million each that year and paid its top earner $10 million, $7.5 million of which was picked up by FPL.

FPL’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike case started back up this morning, the same day the Juno Beach-based utility took out three-quarter page ads in The Palm Beach Post and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

“In January, the lowest bill in the state will go even lower,” the headline on the advertisements reads.

Below that, a bar chart shows residential rates for a 1000 kilowatt hour bill for 32 companies.

The ad shows FPL’s projected December bill as the lowest at $110.72, and dipping lower to $101.76 in January 2010.

Florida Power & Light Co. made a second multi-million dollar concession this morning in hopes of nailing down a $1.3 billion rate hike.

The state’s largest utility is scrapping about $37 million in executive pay from its proposed base rate increase, letting customers off the hook for the pay.

FPL already backed off $16 million in aviation costs this morning, lowering its $1.3 billion rate hike by about $53 million.

The company is challenging in court the PSC’s demand that the names of the 440 employees earning more than $165,000 per year be made public.

Read FPL attorney Susan Clarke’s statement at the hearing after the jump.
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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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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 should not delay a vote this year on Florida Power & Light Co.’s proposed $1.3 billion rate hike, Public Service Commission staff recommended today.

Gov. Charlie Crist asked the panel to hold off on FPL’s rate case and on Progress Energy Florida’s proposed $500 million rate increase until next year when his new hand-picked commissioners join the panel on Jan. 1.

FPL’s rate case is slated to resume Wednesday and finish up on Friday after dragging on more than two months longer than originally scheduled.

The PSC should ignore Crist’s request, staff wrote in a recommendation today. The panel is scheduled to vote on the recommendation next Tuesday.

The PSC is scheduled to vote on the amount of FPL’s base rate hike on Dec. 21 and on Progress Energy’s on Nov. 19.

FPL argued that the case should move forward because it would take the new commissioners – former newspaper editorial writer David Klement and Panhandle accountant and bar owner and manager Benjamin “Steve” Stevens – too long to get up to speed on the voluminous filings in the cases.
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Two utility regulators’ aides are back on the job after being suspended with pay during investigations into BlackBerry messages exchanged with utility representatives.

Public Service Commission Chairman Matthew Carter reinstated aide William Garner on Oct. 5 and Commissioner Lisa Edgar put aide Roberta Bass back to work on Oct. 12.

The aides will be on the job when the PSC continues a hearing on Florida Power & Light Co.’s $1.3 billion rate hike request on Wednesday.

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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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The Public Service Commission just agreed by a 3-1 vote to let customers pick up the tab for $62.7 million of Florida Power & Light’s construction costs for new nuclear power plants.

Commissioner Nancy Argenziano casting the sole vote against the increase.

FPL customers will pay $0.67 for 1,000 kilowatt hours for the nuclear cost charges next year as a result of today’s vote.

The Juno Beach-based utility is also asking for a $1.3 billion base rate hike, but when the panel votes on that issue remains unclear.

Gov. Charlie Crist asked the PSC to wait until next year when his two new appointees to the regulatory agency come on board to vote on the FPL base rate hike and another $500 million base rate increase sought by Progress Energy Florida.

Argenziano, appointed by Crist in 2007, is likely to become chairwoman of the panel next year.

Even if FPL’s base rate increase is approved, customers’ bills will go down by at least $9 because of a drop in fuel charges.

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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Associated Industries of Florida president Barney Bishop took media matters into his own hands this morning after being fed up with a lack of attention to a utility regulator’s BlackBerry messages.

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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