By Paul Chesser

Say what you want about Duke Energy and the often-injudicious CEO James Rogers, but at least he is focused on his company’s profitability and the interests of shareholders.

Last week he composed an op-ed for The News & Observer of Raleigh in which he praised Democrat Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican Sen. John McCain for their introduction of the Foreign Earnings Reinvestment Act. The bill would give American companies a “holiday” from the 35 percent U.S. corporate income tax, enabling businesses to – as James Valvo of Americans for Prosperity explained – invest in capital and R&D, hire and train employees, and pay dividends to shareholders.

“Duke Energy alone has $1.2 billion held hostage overseas by a tax system that penalizes U.S. businesses that want to bring their foreign earnings to America to create jobs,” Rogers wrote. “With the right changes to our tax laws, we can bring that money home to support and accelerate our capital program investments in smart grid technology, retire and replace older coal plants, and build natural gas and renewable generation.”

If only it was a matter of allowing Duke to bring their money home for such “investments.” The other side of Rogers’s strategy is to hunt down every means possible to game government domestic policy in favor of Duke’s energy initiatives.

Read the rest at the National Legal & Policy Center blog.