Documents: Consumers zapped, regulator tapped for good times

The following excerpts are from e-mails exchanged Aug. 26 to Sept. 14 between Indiana's top utility regulator, a NiSource Inc. director, and the president of Duke Indiana. In the e-mails they plan a day touring thoroughbred farms and taking in the races at the legendary Keeneland track in Lexington, Ky. The flurry of e-mails came just after the top regulator signed off on an order authorizing NiSource Inc. subsidiary NIPSCO to raise electric rates. That top regulator was Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission Chairman David Lott Hardy, who was fired from his job in October. The NIPSCO director, writing under the e-mail handle of Greystonebarn@aol.com, is Dennis E. Foster, an 11 year veteran of the NiSource board and chair of its audit committee. The Duke Indiana president was Michael Reed, who was fired in October. Note: The e-mails run in chronological order from the bottom of each page to the top, with the oldest e-mails at the bottom of each page and the most recent at the top. Readers should then flip to the bottom of the next page in the document to keep going in chronological order.