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Trigaux column: Election turns Duke Energy into top villain, but what about after?

 
A Sierra Club coalition in support of clean energy protests at the Duke Energy headquarters in downtown St. Petersburg in April. At noon today, a “Pitchfork Protest” is planned, this time to voice complaints from dissatisfied customers. 
A Sierra Club coalition in support of clean energy protests at the Duke Energy headquarters in downtown St. Petersburg in April. At noon today, a “Pitchfork Protest” is planned, this time to voice complaints from dissatisfied customers. 
Published Oct. 29, 2014

With Florida's Election Day just around the corner, one figure has emerged as every politician's chief villain: Duke Energy.

In this year's tight campaign races, better to touch a live electric wire than Duke.

This is the power company that pummeled its Florida customers with electricity rates far above its peers. The company that charged billions for broken and undelivered nuclear power plants. The utility that unapologetically continues to provide rock-bottom service and too often exudes corporate arrogance.

So intense has popular animosity grown against Duke Energy that the utility has become the political lightning rod of the year as the Company Everyone Loves to Hate.

For good reason. What other big company in modern Florida history has so blundered to become a universal bogeyman in state politics? Even BP, whose 2010 record oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico still threatens decades of economic damage to the state, never generated the level of acrimony produced by Duke Energy in this political cycle.

Less than a week before Nov. 4, a so-called Pitchfork Protest against years of lousy customer treatment by Duke is scheduled for noon today outside the utility's headquarters in downtown St. Petersburg.

The barrage of political ads on TV and social media singles out Duke Energy as an organization undermining Florida's future.

Gov. Rick Scott is pilloried in ads as being in the pocket of Duke Energy, taking its campaign money while ignoring Duke's gouging of its Florida ratepayers. In particular, Duke is condemned for its aggressive use of a 2006 state law that lets utilities charge customers up front for the costs of building new nuclear power plants — whether or not those plants are built.

Since Duke's arrival in Florida after buying Progress Energy in 2012, it has lobbied Tallahassee to gut policies meant to encourage energy efficiency. In the process, Duke and other big utilities have done their best to stifle the solar power and alternative energy industries in what laughingly is still called the Sunshine State.

So toxic is Duke's image, even Scott seeks to distance himself. He has countered with ads faulting opponent and former governor Charlie Crist for signing that onerous 2006 measure into law while Crist was in office. The ad is false. Former Gov. Jeb Bush approved that law. But this late in the campaign, Scott is eager to deflect the shadow of Duke's agenda in Florida.

Nor is Duke simply a punching bag in the governor's race. Duke's role as an overpriced monopoly is a hot issue in multiple legislative campaigns, including the race between state Rep. Dwight Dudley, D-St. Petersburg, and Republican candidate Bill Young. Silent during Duke's ascension in Florida, Republican state senators Jack Latvala of Clearwater and Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg recently went public to demand the state Public Service Commission — Florida's infamous regulatory lapdog of electric utilities — actually represent the interests of oppressed Duke ratepayers.

If Scott wins re-election, Duke Energy will breathe a sigh of relief and little will change in Florida. Should Crist win, Duke may face unwanted challenges. Electric rates, already set to soar to pay for Duke's new natural gas plant, could face tougher scrutiny. The 2006 state law that lets Duke and other big utilities force customers to pay in advance for new plants could even face a repeal. And alternative-energy industries could find a supporter in Crist that they do not see in Scott.

But here's a reality check. As powerful as Duke Energy is here, Florida is just a modest piece of business for this country's largest power company. Wall Street continues to reward publicly traded Duke with record share prices and a market value topping $56 billion. That's bigger than GM.

Bottom line? Yes, Duke Energy is now a political pariah in Florida. But post-election, Duke's deep pockets are poised to end the utility's current quarantine and return the state to the way things were: ugly for Duke customers.

Contact Robert Trigaux at rtrigaux@tampabay.com.