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Opponents of Duke Energy’s Edwardsport plant say the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission should postpone a Thursday hearing on tapping ratepayers for cost overruns, in the wake of a conflict-of-interest scandal that cost the agency head his job on Tuesday.
That’s when Gov. Mitch Daniels fired IURC chair David Lott Hardy, saying Hardy knew the agency’s chief counsel, Scott Storms, was talking with Duke about a job while presiding over Duke cases including Edwardsport.
Daniels ordered that administrative opinions over which storms presided should be reopened and reviewed to ensure they weren’t tainted.
The IURC on Thursday is scheduled to conduct a hearing regarding Duke’s attempts to recover additional costs for a plant whose price tag has roughly doubled to $2.9 billion since 2007.
In light of the review, “why are we moving forward with new evidence?,” asked Kerwin Olson, program director of Citizens Action Coalition.
IURC officials could not be reached for comment this morning.
Storms, as an administrative law judge, presided over about 25 Duke cases in the last several years. He appears to have last worked on the Edwardsport case on July 23.
Storms, along with Duke Energy’s
Duke and Storms earlier had obtained an opinion from the
On Sept. 20 the ethics commission opined that he was not subject to the prohibition, saying he ultimately did not negotiate or administer a contract with Duke. Commissioners make the ultimate decision in cases pending before the IURC.
But groups such as CAC, were floored, saying Storms still made critical decisions such as deciding or not whether to admit key evidence in utility cases.
Daniels administration officials this week said Hardy was aware of those communications yet failed to remove Storms from Duke cases.
The matter has been turned over to the State Inspector General’s office. Julia Vaughn, policy director at Common Cause of Indiana, suggested an outside party should be called to investigate, such as the
The Edwardsport plant is already a volatile issue as it is.
In August the state’s Utility Cousumer Counselor, David Stippler, said he was “deeply concerned” about the costs of the Edwardsport coal-gasification plant and said the IURC should be mindful of consumer impact of the overruns.
Stippler proposed the commission help consumers in part by axing an incentive that allowed Duke to boost earnings by defering income taxes.
Last month Stippler’s office, Duke and Duke Industrial customers proposed a settlement that would cap Edwardport at $3 billion. It would revise a depreciation rate that would save customers about $35 million a year, among other relief.
The CAC has argued that proposed changes to depreciation and capital are short-lived because they could go away with Duke’s next rate case in 2012, when the plant is set to open.
CAC and environmental groups argue the cheapest alternative is to halt construction of the 618-megawatt plant.
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