NC WARN sent the following letter to Governor Pat McCrory after learning from his Statement of Economic Interest that he owns stock in Duke Energy. See his latest SEI filing here.
February 14, 2013
The Honorable Pat McCrory
Governor of North Carolina
116 West Jones Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603-8001
Subject: How much Duke Energy stock do you still own? Your large holdings amplify the need for recusal on NC Utilities Commission appointments and opposition to Senate Bill 10.
Dear Governor McCrory,
NC WARN has obtained your most recent Statement of Economic Interest filing from the NC Ethics Commission, which shows your ownership of a large amount of Duke Energy stock as of February 16, 2012. We therefore reiterate the January 4th call by AARP NC and NC WARN that you recuse yourself from appointments to the NC Utilities Commission.
In addition, we restate our February 11th request that you publicly state your opposition to Senate Bill 10, which would allow you to immediately replace all members of the Utilities Commission – the regulators who set electricity customers’ rates and approve Duke’s plans to invest billions of customer dollars building power plants North Carolina does not need.
Most importantly, we think you will agree that the People of North Carolina deserve to know: What is the value of your holdings in Duke Energy?
The SEI requires only that you indicate if holdings exceed $10,000. Since you worked at Duke Energy for 28 years, it seems likely that your stock ownership could reach into six figures, if not into the millions.
As we noted to you earlier, your career at Duke Energy already created a powerful conflict of interest. Now that conflict is compounded by the knowledge that you have profited alongside Duke even after you left the corporation, and might well still be doing so.
Your conflict of interest regarding the NC Utilities Commission and its Public Staff, to our knowledge, has no precedent in North Carolina or anywhere else in the United States. We urge you to encourage public trust in State Government by taking the steps noted above, and those outlined in our January 4th letter, that would create a firewall between the governor’s office and his long-time corporate connections.
Sincerely,
Jim Warren
Executive Director
NC WARN
See our previous letters to Governor McCrory:
January 4, 2013: Recuse yourself from filling vacancies at N.C. Utilities Commission
February 11, 2013: Recuse yourself and oppose Senate Bill 10
