Ellington

Attorney General Jim Hood won a small victory in U.S. District Court last month, with the court deciding to deny Entergy's attempt to block Hood from obtaining internal records regarding their alleged purchase of energy from sister companies in neighboring states like Alabama, Louisiana or Texas.

Hood maintains that two court cases in Louisiana (leading to a court decision that cost Entergy $100 million) suggests the company could be engaging in the same practice in Mississippi, buying energy from sister companies in an effort to keep Entergy stock artificially high, rather than buying from more affordable sources.

Louisiana concluded that Entergy charged its customers for the inflated energy prices. Hood said Mississippi customers may have been suffering unnaturally high-energy bills under the same program and has demanded documentation from the company that could either disprove or verify his suspicion.

The court's decision opens the door to a continuing suit that Hood lodged against the company in Hinds County Chancery Court Sept. 19. "They say they have nothing to hide, so why don't they just hand it over if that's the case?" Hood asked.

Entergy argues that it already has plenty of oversight from various government agencies, and that the attorney general's office is not supposed to be one of them. Entergy spokeswoman Mara Hartmann told the Jackson Free Press last month that the Mississippi Public Service Commission has most of the information that Hood wants and that Hood should request it of them.

"Hood has the regular established channels to get this information," Hartmann said. "That's what we were saying through federal court. We were saying a number of other agencies are already regulating us. There are proper channels where this information is available. ... If not all, then most of it. I have not seen everything he has asked for, but I know that if it is fuel adjustment-related, it's in the hands of the PSC people."

The Mississippi Public Service Commission seemed to side with both Hood's motivation and Hartmann's argument last week by subpoenaing all court records and documents connected with the Louisiana's suit against Entergy.

The PSC directed Entergy Mississippi Inc. and Entergy Services Inc. to produce "all testimony, transcripts, documents, exhibits, and work papers and orders of every kind and character that were filed with the Louisiana Public Service Commission under the Delany and Dorden cases," which concluded with the $100 million payback to Louisiana customers.

"Entergy wound up paying out money to Louisiana customers in that case, so I think the case is pertinent to Mississippi," said Brandon Presley, commissioner for the state's northern district. "Obviously there have been instances where customers have been overcharged in Louisiana, and we want to see if the same thing is happening to Mississippi ratepayers."

The commission directed the companies to file the documents with the commission and the Mississippi Public Utilities staff by Nov. 6, within one week of the date of the order. Presley said that Hood and the AG's office could have full access to the documents that Entergy turned over. He said that the commission did not have the resources to interpret the information in the subpoenaed documents, but said Hood's people would likely "know what to do with it."

Entergy inadvertently set the suit and subpoenas in motion after raising ratepayers' energy bills 28 percent in July. In response to the hike, alarmed commission members held a series of meetings grilling Entergy officials.

The company, citing a timely drop in natural gas prices, announced big price decreases as the PSC meetings were underway. The company filed for a fourth-quarter fuel adjustment that brought bills down by 9 percent in October. Those cuts joined another Entergy proposal in September to reduce bills by 9.6 percent, amounting to a reduction of consumer prices of almost 19 percent by the end of the year.

Entergy's decision came too late to call the dogs off, however. Hood, who admitted to reporters in August that he had been watching the PSC's meetings "with interest," felt the commission didn't have the staff to fully take on Entergy and subpoenaed the company for 30-years worth of information regarding its fuel procurement practices. Entergy filed its failed suit in U.S. District Court to block the subpoenas soon after.