On Tuesday, Pensacola Attorney Mike Papantonio fired off a letter to the Florida Public Service Commission threatening to bring a lawsuit over the approved rate increases for Florida Power & Light customers.

Papantonio says that his law firm is being “covered up with folks in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties” who want the law firm to sue both DeSantis and the Public Service Commission Board.

• He called the rate increases “unconscionable.”

In his letter to Shonna McCray, Regulatory Consultant for the Public Service Commission, he writes, “Trust me, I understand all the limitations on us in our ability to bring a suit, however, please understand we have a long history of innovative lawyering.”

Papantonio says that his end goal is to engage in discovery, and make it public about how the Public Service Commission and the Governor “allowed these energy corporation bandits to pillage North Florida.”

“Please consider this your first wakeup notice from us,” he wrote in the letter. “I recommend you send this up the food chain and understand that you are creating the perfect storm for a potential political disaster in North Florida for our Governor who, by the way, I support and admire. However, we are more than willing to launch a massive TV and radio effort to tell the story about how he has allowed energy industry robber barons to descend on all of us.”

On January 1, 2022, Florida Power & Light Company and Gulf Power Company merged and are now doing business as Florida Power & Light Company in Northwest Florida.