Oil overcharge funds were intended to provide court-ordered restitution to consumers overcharged by oil companies from 1973 through 1981. In Mississippi, the Department of Economic and Community Development’s Division of Energy and Transportation promotes energy conservation and assistance programs through grants and contracts to individuals or firms who submit proposals for overcharge funds.
A July 1988 Division of Energy and Transportation news release and legal notice did not adhere to the division’s own standard operating procedures for soliciting and selecting proposals. At the time of the 1988 news release and legal notice, the Board of Energy and Transportation had not prepared a statewide energy and transportation plan as mandated by state law. Without such a plan, the division had no basis on which to develop formal criteria to evaluate stripper well proposals in the context of the state’s energy needs and court-ordered guidelines.
The division advanced installments of loan awards which were contingent upon completion of incremental tasks prior to the borrowers’ completion of such tasks. The division also paid contractors who did not submit deliverables or failed to complete projects on schedule. PEER also identified a possible violation of state law involving a contractor who falsely claimed to be a registered professional engineer. Upon PEER’s inquiry, the contractor suggested that this misrepresentation was due to an inadvertent error made during production of contract proposal documents.
For a paper copy of this report, contact PEER by telephone at 601-359-1226 or by e-mail at reports@peer.ms.gov.