TALLAHASSEE -- Days after Tallahassee's top prosecutor said his investigation into the state's utilities regulator was turning up no ``skullduggery,'' a powerful lawmaker and an important business lobby are calling for additional probes into the Public Service Commission.

Associated Industries of Florida, which has sided with Florida Power & Light in its request to raise $1.3 billion more in rates, called for the PSC's inspector general to investigate Commissioner Nancy Argenziano's BlackBerry messages to her former aide, saying they raised questions about her impartiality.

And Rep. Carlos Lopez Cantera, a Miami Republican who sits on the PSC nominating council, echoed the business group's call for an investigation of Argenziano, but said it should also include PSC member Lisa Edgar, who exchanged BlackBerry messages with an FPL lobbyist.

``An investigation into the commissioners' actions is in order,'' Lopez-Cantera said. ``The last few weeks have revealed a culture at the PSC that needs to be disinfected.''

The PSC has come under fire since the Herald/Times and other newspapers disclosed that commissioners and some PSC staff socialized, exchanged text messages, and had frequent phone contact with officials from the utilities they regulate.

On Feb. 26, 2008, for example, utility lobbyist Jorge Chamizo messaged Bill Garner, chief aide to PSC Chairman Matt Carter: ``Tomorrow let's rock out!'' The next month, Chamizo started a conversation with Garner this way: ``What up Blue? Whats news with u dawg?''

`DEAD END'

The revelations prompted a joint investigation by Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into criminal wrongdoing. Meggs said this week that the probe has not been completed, but had appeared to reach a ``dead end.''

After the Herald/Times disclosed that several staff aides had given their unique BlackBerry messaging codes, known as PINs, to an FPL attorney, the newspapers asked the PSC to search for copies of the messages, which had not been retained.

Several hundred PIN messages were recovered from August and July, along with another batch that the agency had inadvertently retained after it switched BlackBerry accounts in March 2008.

Those messages were ``a picture in time,'' said Lee Kissell, head of information technology for the PSC, and included about 3,000 private messages from PSC staff, including nearly 2,000 between Argenziano and her aide.

Argenziano said the calls for an investigation are ``baseless and malicious'' and an attempt ``to remove me from the rate case.'' She defended the messages, saying she had nothing to hide and relied on PINs and text messages to communicate with her aide when she was out of town or recovering from a broken leg.

``Everything there is a public record,'' she said. She acknowledged that some of the messages were unflattering comments about other commissioners and called them spontaneous thoughts based on ``what was said at the moment.''

`SERIOUS QUESTIONS'

Associated Industries of Florida singled out Argenziano for investigation, but the same records show that Commissioner Edgar sent PIN messages to FPL and Progress Energy lobbyist Chamizo.

Edgar told the Herald/Times in September: ``I don't even know what they are. I don't use them. I don't PIN. . . . I do not recall receiving them. . . . I don't think I have ever gotten a PIN from FPL.''

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