Hood Shocked by Entergy

Somewhere there is a lawyer working for Jim Hood who understands his case against Entergy. The problem is, Jim Hood does not.

For example, he failed to comprehend the FERC Form 1 he cited in his press release yesterday. That form is the basic reporting tool used by energy regulators, which Jim Hood is not. So we would forgive him, except that he fancies himself an energy regulator. Maybe he wants to grow up to be on the Mississippi Public Service Commission, which IS an energy regulator.

I digress. A recent press release from Hood expressed how much he was shocked by Entergy:

Entergy now claims that the amount of energy sold to Mississippi from the Evangeline contract comprised only one percent of the total Entergy Mississippi load in megawatt hours used between 2005 and 2008. But, according to documents filed by Entergy Mississippi with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the amount averaged closer to 8% in 2005 and 10 % for 2006 of total purchases by Entergy Mississippi from the Exchange.

Whaaa? You see those are different things. They both start with "E" so that might confuse him.

Lets see if we can explain this in terms Jim Hood can understand. Lets say hypothetically Joey Langston and Timothy Balducci gave $100,000 to the Democratic Attorney General Association (DAGA). Along with them, trial lawyers from all over the country, gave money to DAGA. Then DAGA gave $850,000 to Jim Hood. You can't say that $850,000 came from Langston and Balducci, because only a portion of that money came from them.

In the same way, Entergy purchased 8% to 10% of power from the Exchange. But only a portion of the power in the Exchange came from Evangeline. So Hood can't say all that power came from Evangeline.

Yes I know, the analogy breaks down real fast. First, while we know that DAGA did report it gave $850,000 to Hood, we don't know how much Langston and Balducci gave to DAGA, because unlike the power Exchange, it is not regulated by something like FERC to make sure everything is public. Second, Langston and Balducci just gave their money directly to Hood, in excess of $120,000 over the years. Third, Hood gave Langston and Balducci a contingency fee contract that was potentially worth $14 million and that doesn't really work in the analogy at all (it was just a gratuitous shot).

So I guess the point is, Jim Hood knows how money moves around, and he knows how to move the media around, but he doesn't know how to regulate power.