Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Paul Ridzon from KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Capital Markets
Good morning, congratulations on a good quarter.
Tom Webb
Hi Paul, thanks.
Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Capital Markets
Looking at slide 16, can you explain at the utility the two right most entries, the cost & other and rate release, the hedge part, what are those?
Tom Webb
Yes that is a great question and let me just remind you what we are doing. What we are trying to do with the hedge part is show you what has already been approved. So it represents our electric rate case from last year, last summer, and the gas settlement at the end of last year. So those are already approved and they are built into our numbers. What is solid red and solid green reflects what we are doing this year that is new so the new request for electric rate increase as well as the anticipated gas case.
Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Capital Markets
Okay, you are going to roll about 350 of utility debt this year, as you get visibility on the coupon on that debt, will you be able to put that in the file and implement?
Tom Webb
The staff is likely to update debt as we go through the process this year. So there will be that opportunity to reflect any change that we do when we issue some first mortgage bonds.
Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Capital Markets
Okay and what was the impact of storms in ’08 versus budget or absolute?
Tom Webb
I will give you just a rough estimate, I don’t have the exact number in front of me but I will tell you we had some big storms at the end of June and early July and we coupled that with a big storm that occurred as we got towards the end of the year and the pretax number in millions of dollars would be around $20 million, maybe just a touch higher than that. We had some of that budgeted but not all of that because the storms were just more than we expected.
Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Capital Markets
And if you elect ’09 bonus depreciation in the stimulus package what would that do to cash flow?
Tom Webb
There are several ways to do that so it is not a straightforward number but I would tell you we could probably get a cash flow benefit of between $250 million and that would give us a nice benefit at the utility and then we take our NOLs on a consolidated basis and simply push out when we take the benefit for those. So it can be a very good thing but it is complicated as we work through our taxes to make that decision with some care.
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