By Bill Britt
Alabama Political Reporter
MONTGOMERY—A clandestine mission to ruin the Mississippi Power Company is being orchestrated by Hattiesburg, Mississippi resident, Thomas A. Blanton, who is running for a place on the State’s Public Service Commission, which regulates the power giant.
In conversations with former Mobile Press Register reporter, Eddie Curran, candidate Blanton revealed how he would execute his plan to gain control of the utility company, or destroy it if necessary.
Blanton, in a moment of candor said, he had “lined up a $600 million payment-to-arbitrage loan” which would allow for the “take over Mississippi Power.”
Blanton said that if elected to the PSC, he would use the power of his office to remove Mississippi Power’s Certificate to Operate, which authorizes the utility to do business in the state. The Certificates are approved by the PSC commissioners.
He is also reported as saying, that plans are being laid to buy the company’s assets at auction, or out of bankruptcy. Blanton said his plans could include “tak[ing] the company away from them” or turning the utility into a electric cooperative by assuming its assets.
The Mississippi Clarion Ledger labels Blanton as a theologian…a student of Jean Lafitte…an oilman, and an environmentalist.
Curran, as a reporter, has been a utility gadfly his entire career, never showing the least sympathy for Alabama Power, Mississippi Power, or its parent, The Southern Company.
So, it is extraordinary that their conversation should reveal that Blanton, as a candidate for the commission which oversees the state’s utilities, should be speaking so openly about a plot to dismantle the state’s largest electricity supplier. But, perhaps, it is not so difficult to imagine since Blanton’s candidacy for the PSC has been based primarily on denying Mississippi Power the right to recoup some of the cost of building the Kemper power facility as prescribed by law.
Blanton says for the last year he has had his lawyer investigating ways to avoid having to recuse himself from voting on issues involving Mississippi Power should he become a PSC commissioner. He told Curran that he ‘asked our lawyers to research’ the recusal issue about a year ago, in the event it came up.”
In 2012, Blanton began a crusade against the power company, when he launched a lawsuit seeking to overturn a PSC ruling that allowed Mississippi Power a rate increase to help offset the cost of the nations first clean coal power plant, located in Kemper County, Mississippi.
He also said he would drop any legal challenges to Mississippi Power should he be elected, and feels this would remove any conflict of interest should he need to cast a vote involving the power supplier.
Blanton successfully defeated the PSC approved rate increase for Mississippi Power, winning in the state supreme court.
In 2014, voters in Alabama rejected the candidacy of PSC Commissioner Terry Dunn, who had challenged utility rates in the state. Curran has been a champion for Dunn. Eyes now turn west to see if voters in The Magnolia State will elect a man who wants to ruin the state’s biggest power provider.
