Legalectric

OH NOOOOOOOO!  In my search of the New York Times just now for articles about Xcel, I found this, an obituary for Meyer Shark, who died in May when I was out in Delaware… I had no idea.  He was one of a kind, making a second career of exposing and correcting utility abuses.  I met him when I was working for Florence Township, and we explored various means to hold Xcel, then NSP, accountable, and I was delighted to know there was someone leading the charge.  In the NRG docket, he pushed hard to make public the impact of NRG’s bankruptcy on Xcel and Minnesota ratepayers.  Now what? Where are the public interest attorneys?!?!

To find the NRG docket:

Go to www.puc.state.mn.us

Click “eDockets” and “Search Documents”

Search for docket 02-1436

Here’s David Cay Johnston’s tribute from the New York Times:

Meyer Shark, lawyer who fought utility, is dead at 94

 By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Myer Shark, a Minnesota consumer lawyer whose last case sought to recover $300 million of taxes that electric customers paid a utility but that federal and state governments never received, died yesterday in a suburb of Minneapolis, days after filing the final papers in the case. He was 94.

His death was announced by a daughter, Janet Frisch. He died at a hospice in St. Louis Park, Minn.

The taxes Mr. Shark sought were embedded in the electric rates paid by customers of Xcel Energy’s Minnesota electric utility. The government did not get the money because a sister company went bankrupt, generating a huge tax refund for Xcel. Mr. Shark’s pursuit of the case inspired investigations and hearings in at least four other states.

“The law says utilities are entitled to just and reasonable returns,” Mr. Shark said three weeks ago. “When the utility pockets money that they got from ratepayers, money that was supposed to pay taxes, then they are earning unjust and unreasonable rates and I’m going to fight that as long as I’m alive.”

Ron Giteck, an assistant Minnesota attorney general, said that in the weeks before he died, Mr. Shark “filed everything that needed to be filed so the case can be decided” by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Last week the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission awarded Mr. Shark $20,000, the maximum allowed under state law, for his pursuit of the tax case on behalf of ratepayers. In an era when lawyer fees in a case can run into the tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Shark had asked for $160 an hour plus $437 in expenses, for a total of $30,000. Xcel opposed any payment.

Mr. Shark was born in Devils Lake, N.D., and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1936.

In addition to his daughter Janet, of Golden Valley, Minn., he is survived by his wife of 67 years, Marjorie, of St. Louis Park, Minn.; another daughter, Miriam Shark of Baltimore; two sons, Bud, of Lyons, Colo., and Steve, of Fargo, N.D.; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

While he was a fierce opponent in rate cases, Mr. Shark often answered his phone whimsically, saying “you have reached your friendly Shark.”

Here’s the tax appellate case:

In the Matter of Complaint of Meyer Shark, et al., Regarding Xcel Energy’s Income Taxes

Meanwhile, a search of the Star Tribune, “all years” shows nothing…  Oh, here it is: Myer Shark – Star Tribune

OOOOOOOH, there’s trouble at Xcel’s door.  We know from Mesaba that it’s the financial aspects that kill a project, such as Mesaba which is deemed by the DOE to be “too risky for private investment” and then there’s BSII. Coal is engaged in a full court press to preserve it’s filthy ass, in a time when the expense of a coal plant can’t be justified.  PUCs/PSCs across the country are faced with a wave of coal plant applications and are making determinations as to whether an investment in a coal plant or IGCC plant is a “reasonable and prudent” investment, and many are saying NO, that it’s not in the public interest.  That’s protection of the ratepayers and taxpayers.  Who is informing the utility shareholders of the risks of investment in coal?  Perhaps Bill Gates, a big coal investor, could help on this, eh?  Maybe subpoena him too?

New York Subpoenas 5 Energy Companies

By FELICITY BARRINGER and DANNY HAKIM

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has opened an investigation of five large energy companies, questioning whether their plans to build coal-fired power plants pose undisclosed financial risks that their investors should know about.

Mr. Cuomo, using the same state securities law wielded by his predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, to investigate corruption on Wall Street, sent subpoenas late Friday to the top executives of the five companies, seeking internal documents.

The companies, which have projects in various states, are AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy, Peabody Energy and Xcel Energy.

It is rare, if not unique, for a securities law to be used for an environmental purpose, in this case the fight against new coal-fired power plants. The plants’ main emission, carbon dioxide, has been linked by scientists to global warming.

In letters accompanying the subpoenas, the attorney general’s office asked whether investors received adequate information about the potential financial liabilities of carbon dioxide emissions that exacerbate climate change.

“Any one of the several new or likely regulatory initiatives for CO2 emissions from power plants — including state carbon controls, E.P.A.’s regulations under the Clean Air Act, or the enactment of federal global warming legislation — would add a significant cost to carbon-intensive coal generation,” the letters said.

They added, “Selective disclosure of favorable information or omission of unfavorable information concerning climate change is misleading.”

Mr. Cuomo’s move represents a new tactic in an expanding campaign against some of the more than 100 coal-fired power plants currently under consideration.

The nationwide anti-coal effort is being directed by a coalition of environmental groups, shareholder activists and state officials in the Northeast and on the West Coast, including in New York and California.

In an interview, Mr. Cuomo said, “The concept here is using the securities laws to investigate whether the economic risks of these plants are being disclosed — the economic risks which are dovetailing with the environmental concerns.”

Katherine Kennedy, a special deputy attorney general in the environmental protection bureau who worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council for 19 years, added that power plants produced about 30 percent of carbon emissions in the United States, so “it seemed like a logical place to begin.”

Mr. Cuomo said, “It’s a priority for us.”

Two of the five companies disputed Mr. Cuomo’s assertions. Representatives of the other companies postponed comment until they could examine the letters and subpoenas.

The power plant investigation was the second last week in which Mr. Cuomo issued subpoenas under the Martin Act, a 1921 state securities law that predates the creation of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. The New York law grants the attorney general broad powers to compel testimony and subpoena records.

Until Mr. Spitzer used the law as a weapon against corruption on Wall Street, it was obscure. In June, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page called for its repeal, arguing that “it is a law that allows a prosecutor to punish, or even ruin, any financial company regardless of evidence or motive.”

In the case of the five energy companies, Mr. Cuomo said, “This is a very straightforward, consistent use of the act because it’s about disclosure to investors.”

For five years, environmentally oriented shareholder groups have been filing resolutions seeking similar disclosures — including one with Peabody Energy — said Dan Bakal, the director of electric power programs for Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors and environmental groups focused on the environmental impacts of corporate actions.

“This ratchets up the pressure on companies to provide more information as the risks become more and more material,” Mr. Bakal said. Peabody Energy, he added, had increased its disclosure somewhat following shareholders’ requests.

Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody, said in an e-mail message yesterday that the company included climate change disclosures “in multiple places” in its public financial filings.

Mr. Svec also said the letter was inaccurate “in claiming that we operate power plants.” He said Peabody is a minority partner in a planned Illinois plant.

Mr. Svec called the New York action “outrageous,” adding, “The legal system was designed to protect — not harass — those such as Peabody who are providing clean energy solutions for America.”

Representatives of Dynegy, Dominion and AES said the documents were under review.

Xcel Energy is building a coal-fired plant in Colorado that was cited in the letter from the attorney general.

A company spokeswoman, Mary Sandok, said in an e-mailed statement: “The plant under construction in Colorado is being built under an agreement we reached with national, state and local environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense. Our financial disclosures are adequate.”

Data from the federal Energy Information Administration shows that about half the country’s electrical generation comes from coal. For the next two or three years, new capacity will be coming largely from natural gas.

But coal, which is now the cheapest fuel — absent expensive technology, still in its experimental stage, to control carbon dioxide emissions — is projected to be the dominant fuel for new electricity from 2009 onward.

The fight against new coal-fired plants has been waged by environmental groups in tandem with their fight at the state, regional and national levels to cap emissions of greenhouse gases in all sectors of the economy.

A group of 10 Northeastern states, including New York, is adopting a program that would cap emissions and allow trading of pollution allotments among projects in those states.

California already has developed rules, which are being copied by New York, Vermont and 10 other states, to reduce heat-trapping gases from passenger vehicles. Those rules were endorsed in a ruling by a federal district judge in Vermont last week — in a case in which Mr. Cuomo’s staff participated.

But this is Mr. Cuomo’s most significant foray into the arena of climate change since taking over in January from Mr. Spitzer, who was one of the most high-profile occupants of the attorney general’s office.

Before he started, Mr. Cuomo acknowledged Mr. Spitzer’s formidable shadow; a Cuomo campaign ad last year said his predecessor had left “big shoes to fill” and featured people holding up the foot-measuring scales used by shoe salesmen. This year, Mr. Cuomo, who is a former federal housing secretary and son of a former governor, has himself made waves nationwide.

He shined a harsh light on close ties between some universities and student lenders, and he is now expanding Mr. Spitzer’s aggressive use of the Martin Act in new areas.

Mr. Cuomo’s office said last week that the attorney general had also invoked the Martin Act and issued subpoenas in his investigation of the oversight of the state’s $154 billion pension fund during the four-year tenure of Alan G. Hevesi as state comptroller.

Here’s what ConocoPhillips has to say about the Wilmington meeting last week:

Wilmington on Energy

And while we’re at it,  in the News Journal:

ConocoPhillips 2Q profit falls

… awwwwwwwwww…

From last night’s meeting, here’s Jim Mulva, CEO of ConocoPhillips, and on the right, that’s moderator John Taylor looking and acting more than a little schnockered.

Yesterday was a long ConocoPhillips day. First was an afternoon small group meeting, with ConocoPhillips CEO John Mulva, at the Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research (click here for their ANNUAL REPORT and look at the amounts for oil spills and the oil company donations!). Present were representatives of Green Delaware (of course), Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, Nature Conservancy, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Tri-State Bird Rescue, a couple unknowns, and of course, Delaware’s oil lobbyist/orchestrater Gary Patterson of the Petroleum Council (who cut the meeting off to rush the ConocoPhillips folks off to see the Governor!). For the most part, it seemed to be a jockeying for position in the race for a buck. My “contribution?” I let him know that given IGCC’s miserable failure in Minnesota and Delaware, that it was time to just get a life, to invest those IGCC R&D dollars in renewable and sustainable energy. Oh, yeah, that suggestion went over well, another “fart in the elevator” direct hit, met with his beady little eyes sharpening in targeted silence! I think the whole point of this “Conversation on Energy” is an IGCC PR scoping and hustling scheme.

Then the evening ConocoPhillips Conversation on Energy — it was a “Boys Club” meeting for sure — all of them up there in suits and ties, and that was depressing. Also depressing is the lack of knowledge of energy issues and all the options we have for generating electricity and reducing energy consumption. Moderator John Taylor stumbled along cluelessly, but Lou Burke, of ConocoPhillips did a great job, a human jukebox of energy information from the ConocoPhillips perspective, and W.R.Gore’s Bill Mortimer seemed creative and expansive in his approach (though he’s also got a vested company interest in selling pollution control equipment, an area they’re trying to expand in, including filters made of their material!). One highlight was the emphasis by two of the panelists on conservation, “saving energy by not using it in the first place,” and “The cheapest energy is that which we don’t have to generate.” So where was coal gasification’s Mike Gregerson to keep tabs on everything and report to his masters?

In his opening remarks, CEO Mulva lamented the lack of a national energy policy (true enough) and focused briefly on four points:

1) Promote energy diversity and energy security

2) Energy conservation and efficiency (in Rochester, these were 4 of 4, we’re moving up!)

3) (Continuing his afternoon theme of government initiative) National effort, by companies, BUT CERTAINLY BY THE GOVERNMENT

4) Meet climate change and environmental expectations of the public

The shining star of the program was none other than DNREC’s John Hughes, who stood up for two Delaware laws he deemed “sacred,” the Coastal Zone Act and the incinerator law. That was heartening, to say the least. Both of these laws were raised by questioners, one of whom wanted support for new/renewed industrial activity on the coast, and Hughes was quick to note that the company had abandoned its “grandfathered” right to operate on the General Chemical site in the Coastal Zone, that new industrial activity, specifically an ethanol plant, would not be considered because the Coastal Zone act was sacred and he wasn’t about to change it. He said that the ethanol plant plans had been brought to him, and he said that ethanol will never be the answer. Meanwhile, there to get the public perspective, er… right… ConocoPhillips was whining that it takes time to go through the permitting process, that it takes UNDUE time. UNDUE TIME! arrrrrgh…

A bit later, he had a second opportunity to shine — there was another question by a self-disclosedConoco Phillips employee who wanted to know what Delaware is doing to promote garbage burning! Now did he know he was sitting right behind Muller, nemesis of incineration? And Hughes response was that Delaware forbids incineration — that they are not looking at garbage burning because that’s prohibited by the restrictive siting laws of Delaware, that the law is another of those sacred laws, and he wasn’t about to work to change that either. And Jim Wolfe of the Delaware Chamber of Commerce’s comment? They want to embark on an effort to gut the Delaware incineration law. Oh, great… and very strange, because when the incineration law was passed, the Chamber supported it! So let him know what you think of that brilliant idea – jwolfe@dscc.com (and I asked and he said they supported Gov. Minner in her support of NRG’s IGCC proposal, another horrific policy idea, so I’m going to send him the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce testimony against the Mesaba Project).

There were two declared ConocoPhillips employees there “asking questions” setting them up — no hardball questions here!

As in Rochester, there were two rows reserved in front for the “Partner” organizations, which included, from those seated there, the Partnership for Delaware Estuary(Danielle Kreeger and ??) and the Committee of 100 (Beverly Baxter and ??). I’m not from here so were there others? I don’t know… I do know that at least three other organizations were asked to be “partners” and they declined. And most of those “reserved” seats were empty. And unlike Rochester, there were a lot of empty seats in the house. And unlike Rochester, they didn’t have a big spread, just cookies and coffee — I was looking forward to a little fruit for dessert after Szechuan…

How were people informed of this meeting? Don’t know! Please comment below if you were invited or know how they got word out.

Here’s the WDEL report:

Conservation focus of town hall meeting

And the News Journal article:

Future is fossil fuels, industry official says

WMDT:

Much agreement on need for alternative energy sources

So were we all at the same meeting?

Yeah, I’d have that expression too if I had to hop to the IGCC drum when it’s going down in flames everywhere we look.

IGCC toadies on parade in Delaware

The Conoco-Phillips dog & pony show is here in Delaware tomorrow, speaking of IGCC toadies. Y’all ought to know by now that Conoco Phillips is the leader of the pack in IGCC technology and promotion — a vested interest to say the least. So far, the lineup for the Delaware dog & pony is:

* Jim Mulva, chairman and CEO, ConocoPhillips
* Lou Burke, manager, Biofuels, ConocoPhillips
* Jim Wolfe, president and CEO, Delaware State Chamber of Commerce
* John Hughes, secretary, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
* William P. Mortimer, leader, Enterprise New Business Development, W.L. Gore & Associates

(in case you’re bored, click here for a bunch of recent Conoco Phillips SEC filings!)

So where is this meeting?

Conoco Phillips Conversation on Energy

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

5:30 p.m Registration

6:00-7:30 p.m. Meeting

Arsht Hall

U of Delaware, Wilmington Campus

2600 Pensylvania Ave, Wilmington

Free parking, and REFRESHMENTS SERVED

And of course there’s all the pre-meeting meetings and post-meeting meetings… one of the “pre-meeting meetings” is at the Tri-State Bird Rescue, where they take the oil covered birds who were caught in an oil spill… ahem…

Here’s their blurb to entice the unwitting to sign up as partners:

Conoco Phillips – Partnership in Conversation on Energy

What Delaware groups are sponsoring this? I’ve heard that two specifically said “NO WAY, JOSE!” And now a third… and you’ll note the names are not stellar. They’re not enviro groups, although we’ve got to keep in mind that there’s not a heck of a lot going on in Delaware — it’s a small state, really small!

================

IGCC toadies on parade in Pierre, SD

Oh, speaking of toadies, and speaking of Conversation on Energy, in Rochester, good ol’ Mike Gergerson was at the one in Rochester. I noticed his name in a few places recently, not only the Great Plains Institute and their Coal Work Group, but in other documents under different names, i.e., Stability Consulting, or HPC:

Mike Gregerson/Stability Consulting on Mesaba Service List

Mike Gregerson’s C.V.

This is the link to HPC. But here’s the funny one — utterly hilarious — it’s the spreadsheet that Ron Gustafson did of the IRR’s records of how Excelsior Energy spent $11.5 million of Minnesota’s money.

IRR $$$ to Excelsior

Scan through this and find Stability Consulting.

Let’s see, Gregorson is on the Excelsior dole… and he’s promoting IGCC and following me around the country to IGCC conferences, and now he’s on the agenda for an IGCC sales pitch in Pierre, SD:

Clean Energy briefing set for Pierre

What will they hear in Pierre? Click & scroll to #5

And with none other than Beth Soholt, Wind on the Wires… or is it Izaak Walton League… IGCC toadies all — who can forget Bill Grant’s presentation promoting IGCC on Valentine’s Day in Grand Rapids? This presentation establishes the Izaak Walton League’s toadism for IGCC beyond a reasonable doubt (the criminal standard is appropriate, as promoting IGCC, given its record, is criminal)

Bill Grant – Sawmill – Energy Efficiency and Climate Friendly Power Supply

Anyway, let’s keep an eye on Gregerson and all those putting $$$ into his wallet. Pay attention to how he represents himself and who he says he’s representing!