In Pinellas, Duke Energy claim stirs bipartisan mudslinging

ST. PETERSBURG — With Election Day one week away, some Pinellas candidates have reached an odd moment of bipartisanship: Democrats and Republicans are slinging the same mud at each other.

In a biting new campaign commercial, Republican state House candidate Bill Young falsely claims his opponent, state Rep. Dwight Dudley, D-St. Petersburg, voted to let Duke Energy charge fees for nuclear plants that may never be built.

Earlier this month, Democratic state Senate candidate Judithanne McLauchlan made the same off-base claim about her opponent, Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg.

"However she's twisting it, she just needs to understand that Dwight Dudley and I supported the same legislation," Brandes said.

Not only are the Republican and Democratic incumbents united here, there's even a factor tying all four politicians: All are rushing to criticize Duke Energy.

Young's TV commercial claims, "Dudley voted to allow Duke Energy to raise fees on Pinellas families for a plant that may never be built."

But he didn't.

The Legislature did pass a law that allows Duke to levy such charges in 2006 — before Dudley was even in the Legislature.

The commercial cites a 2013 law that Dudley did vote for. But that law made it harder to impose advance fees.

In fact, during the House debate over the 2013 legislation cited in Young's commercial, Dudley proposed an amendment that would have prevented Duke from charging those controversial fees (unless citizens voted to pay them). The amendment failed, however, and the fees are still in place.

Dudley called Young's ad "a complete, blatant, black, despicable lie." He also blasted it as a "devious, deceptive, rotten-to-the-core" falsehood.

Told his fellow Democrat, state Senate candidate McLauchlan, made essentially the same claim about her Republican opponent, Dudley said, "I think she's obviously way off on that."

Brandes, the Republican senator whom McLauchlan hopes to unseat, said he had not seen his opponent's commercial, but he had heard her criticize the 2013 law. He said the law was designed to toughen the guidelines.

McLauchlan said her commercial was valid because she considered the 2013 law a vote to continue the nuclear cost recovery fee. But she acknowledged Duke would have been allowed to continue collecting the fee even if the legislation had failed.

Young made a similar claim in an email to the Tampa Bay Times. "By voting for (Senate Bill) 1472, Dwight Dudley allowed Duke to continue to collect higher fees."

The Florida Senate staff's analysis of the bill: It "potentially reduces certain costs recovered from ratepayers of a regulated utility." After the Legislature passed the bill, it was signed into law in June 2013 by Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

An environmental group, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, applauded the move, saying, "We welcome the governor's signature on this modest bill, which is an important step in reining in unbridled utility access to consumers' wallets."

Contact Curtis Krueger at ckrueger@tampabay.com.