N.C. utilities panel sets public hearing on Duke-Progress merger

Published Tue, Jun 19, 2012 05:00 AM

Modified Wed, Jun 20, 2012 04:08 AM

N.C. utilities panel sets public hearing on Duke-Progress merger

By John Murawski - jmurawski@newsobserver.com

By John Murawski The News and Observer

State regulators have set a public hearing for Monday in Raleigh on the proposed merger between Progress Energy and Duke Energy, giving merger opponents a final opportunity to show how the $26 billion deal could harm the public.

But the N.C. Utilities Commission said Tuesday the hearing will be strictly limited, nothing like the three full-day sessions held last fall on the utility merger. This time the commission will allow just one organization, N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, to raise questions about three legal filings made in the past month.

Such a hearing could be over in an hour or two, suggesting the N.C. commission is prepared to issue a quick decision on the merger. The commission rejected requests by Durham-based N.C. WARN for disclosures of internal cost analyses and other confidential details pertaining to the merger.

Raleigh-based Progress and Charlotte-based Duke are anxious for a commission ruling on their $26 billion deal by July 8, the date their termination agreement runs out and each company can walk away from the deal without paying hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties.

But ideally the companies want to close their merger by July 1, a self-imposed deadline that would require a ruling from the N.C. commission next week.

"We're still concerned the commission is working to accommodate the utilities' false deadline," said N.C. WARN director Jim Warren. "They're rushing hard and they're putting a tight noose around this hearing."

Progress and Duke had asked the commission Tuesday to approve their corporate merger promptly without further hearings or debate. The two power companies contend that that requests made by advocacy nonprofits for more hearings and additional conditions are irrelevant and redundant.

"We are still working toward a July 1 close," said Progress spokesman Mike Hughes. "We don't believe at this point that this (hearing) poses a concern for that schedule."

The N.C. Utilities Commission could reject the merger, approve it with conditions or approve it unconditionally.

The merger, recently approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, would create the nation's largest electric utility with $95 billion in assets, about 28,000 employees, and operations in a dozen states as well as South America. As part of the merger the companies would eliminate 1,860 positions over three years and eliminate Progress's corporate headquarters in downtown Raleigh.

On Monday N.C. WARN will be able to ask questions about three filings by Progress, Duke and the Public Staff explaining the effects of new conditions in FERC's merger approval. The Public Staff is the state's consumer advocacy bureau in utility matters before the commission.

Environmental, advocacy and social-justice organizations made filings Monday asking state regulators to impose more conditions on the merger.

A filing by the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the S.C. Coastal Conservation League contends that the Progress-Duke combination will result in higher coal emissions as a consequence of the merged utility jointly dispatching power plants to achieve operational and fuel savings.

Those groups urge the N.C. commission to require Progress and Duke to make a $50 million contribution to promote renewable resources, in addition to funding offshore wind studies.

Murawski: 919-829-8932