It may not have been a message per se...perhaps just getting rid of the ‘evidence’. Obama has to know that congressional hearings are just around the corner. Issa is going to be digging and digging deep. He already has been digging. Perhaps someone was afraid that she was going to be called to testify about stimulus money and backroom dealmaking leading up to the passage of Obama’s job killing energy bill. She also use to work for Nazi Pelosi’s office and several committees before going to Progress. Her govt. salary background is here:
http://www.legistorm.com/person/Ashley_Westbrook_Turton/8870.html
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/05/07/1420688/duke-ceo-questioned-on-climate.html
Duke CEO questioned on climate lobbying
One shareholder says it puts the firm ‘on a risky course’; queries mark a reversal of recent annual meetings.
By Bruce Henderson
bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Friday, May. 07, 2010
At their annual meeting Thursday, Duke Energy shareholders questioned CEO Jim Rogers about the company’s lobbying for climate-change legislation.
Shareholders voted down a proposal calling for a report on Duke’s climate-related lobbying, with 76 percent of proxy votes opposed.
But the questions marked a reversal of the company’s annual meetings, which in recent years have seen activists urging Duke to invest more heavily in green energy such as solar and wind technology.
Duke has spent more than $10 million to lobby Congress since 2008, the Observer reported last October. Much of its work was aimed at influencing measures to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, of which Duke’s fleet of coal-fired power plants are major sources.
About a dozen protesters from the conservative group FreedomWorks marched outside Duke’s uptown Charlotte headquarters during the meeting. They targeted Duke’s support of a trading system for carbon “credits,” or permission to release the greenhouse gas, that is envisioned in congressional energy bills.
“Energy costs are going to go up as a result, and we can’t afford to line Duke’s pockets,” said Joyce Krawiec of Kernersville.
Shareholder Tom Borelli of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank in Washington, said Rogers has “set our company on a risky course” by its advocacy.
The center asserts that Duke will net billions of dollars in carbon credits in exchange for its lobbying. It says climate legislation will raise energy prices and cost jobs.
Rogers also expects electricity costs to rise but said carbon legislation will help guide Duke’s spending to upgrade its fleet of power plants and create thousands of jobs.
In an interview, Rogers said Duke is “very supportive” of efforts by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to craft a retooled climate bill. The bill has not yet been introduced.
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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/01/11/1970919/duke-progress-deal-aims-to-cut.html
The new Duke Energy, which will keep its name and Charlotte headquarters, would serve 7.1 million customers in six states and have a $37 billion market capitalization. It would have the nation’s largest regulated nuclear power fleet.
State and federal regulators, as well as shareholders, still have to approve the deal. Company leaders said they aim to complete the merger by the end of the year, consummating a deal that began over a CEO dinner in July.
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The deal will give Progress stockholders a 7.1 percent premium of the stock closing price on Jan. 5, before reports of the proposed merger drove up prices.
“I think the shareholders of Progress should be pleased with this deal,” Johnson said.
7.1% premium for Progress
David Grumhaus, a partner and utilities expert at the Chicago hedge fund Copia Capital, was not. “I don’t like this deal at all if I’m Progress,” he told Bloomberg News. “It’s hard to see how they couldn’t have held out for a bigger premium.”
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(NO LINK)
Group up in arms over federal funding - of Ind. ‘clean coal’ power plant project
Journal Gazette (Mattoon, IL) - Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Author: HERB MEEKER ; Staff Writer
A Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana director is surprised anyone would recommend federal clean energy funding for the power plant now under construction in western Indiana.
” Duke Energy is promoting this as a carbon capture project. It is the great lie in Indiana. That plant is being built now to not capture a drop of carbon. I’m surprised someone would say commit federal money to this project,” Citizens Action Coalition program director Kerwin Olson said Monday in a phone interview from his Indianapolis office.
Recently, the Clean Air Task Force, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing atmospheric pollution, recommended to President Barack Obama ‘s Interagency Carbon Capture and Storage Task Force that $1 billion in federal stimulus money scheduled for FutureGen be directed to the Duke Energy Indiana integrated gasification combined-cycle power plant now under construction at Edwardsport.
The task force also recommended the federal government then increase its financial commitment to the FutureGen power plant proposal for Mattoon by hammering out an electricity buyout for 20 years or more for the carbon-capture and sequestration plant.
Those were among several recommendations for helping jumpstart the construction of power plants and other facilities connected to promoting carbon capture and sequestration related to coal use.
Olson said the Edwardsport power plant, which will have a 630 megawatt electrical capacity, is flawed in many ways. In four years, its estimated construction cost has more than doubled from $1.2 billon to $2.88 billion, Olson said. And that price estimate does not include any figures for Duke’s intentions to install carbon capture and sequestration equipment at a later date.
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