Thank you for holding, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Alliant Energy's Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gille, Manager of Investor Relations at Alliant Energy.

Good morning. I would like to thank you on the call and the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. With me here today are Pat Kampling, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Tom Hanson, Senior Vice President and CFO; and Robert Durian, Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller; as well as other members of the senior management team. Following prepared remarks by Pat and Tom, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. We issued a news release last night announcing Alliant Energy's second quarter 2015 earnings and reaffirmed 2015 earnings guidance. This release as well as supplemental slides that will be referenced during today's call are available on the Investors Page of our Website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, I need to remind you that the remarks we make on this call and our answers to your questions include forward looking statements. These forward looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters discussed in Alliant Energy's press release issued last night and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward looking statements. In addition, this presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP measures are provided in the supplemental slides which are available on our website at www.alliantenergy.com. At this point, I will turn the call over to Pat.

Thanks, Sue. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report that we had another solid quarter with second quarter 2015 earnings in line with our expectations. Tom will discuss the financial details of the quarter. I am pleased to let you know for the first time in years temperatures did not have a significant impact on earnings per share for the first seven months of 2015. Therefore our year end earnings guidance is trending toward the midpoint of our guidance issued in November 2014. Environmental regulations are in the news again and it is very important to step back for a moment and review the orderly transition of our generating fleet during the past six years. We have been planning for sweeping environmental rules that would impact our industry and developed a strategic plan that would position us and our customers well for that future. We completed many components of that plan, including installing of our 500 megawatts of wind, spending over $1 billion related [ph] emissions controls to our largest and most efficient generating stations and have decided to either close or convert to natural gas several older less efficient coal generating stations. To further diversify our generating fleet, we added natural gas fired generation with the purchase of the 675 megawatts Riverside Energy Center and have another 650 megawatts under construction in Marshalltown, Iowa. And in Wisconsin, we are proposing to build another 650 megawatt natural gas fired generating station. We’ve had a very deliberate plan that transformed our generating fleet to one that is diversified, flexible, has lower emissions but ensuring that we continue to deliver reliable affordable energy to our customers. 2015 is a significant year for our industry in how we utilize and dispatch our generating fleet. We experienced…

Good morning everyone. We released second-quarter earnings last evening with our adjusted earnings from continuing operations of $0.67 per share. Second-quarter 2015 adjusted earnings are $0.11 higher than second quarter 2014. Comparisons between second quarter 2015 and 2014 earnings-per-share are detailed on Slides 4, 5, and 6. The adjusted or non-GAAP second-quarter earnings from continuing operations exclude a charge of $0.06 per share from the sales of IPL, Minnesota electric and gas distribution assets. The premium over the property, plant and equipment book value was more than offset by the elimination of the applicable tax related regulatory assets resulting in the charge recorded in the second quarter. We estimate the second quarter 2015 temperature impact on sales when compared to normal temperatures resulted in lower earnings of $0.03 per share. This was $0.05 lower than second quarter 2014 temperature impact of a positive $0.02 per share. On a temperature normalized basis, Alliant energy's residential electric sales were flat whereas commercial and industrial sales increased approximately 1% quarter over quarter. Taking into consideration the first half results, we are currently forecasting modest increase in temperature normalized sales of approximately 1% for IPL and WP&L when compared to 2014. The 2015 EPS guidance range factors in retail rate based settlements at IPL and WP&L. These settlements reflect rate-based increases at both utilities, offset by a reduction of energy efficiency cost recovery amortization at WPL and the elimination of the Duane Arnold Purchase Power capacity payments at IPL. IPL will credit customer bills by approximately $25 million ratably over 2015. By comparison, the billing credits in 2014 were approximately $70 million and occurred from May through December. Also included in WP&L’s rate settlement was an increase in transmission costs related primarily to the anticipated allocation of SSR costs. As a result of a…

[Operator Instructions] We’ll go first to Andrew Weisel of Macquarie Capital.

Good morning guys. Couple questions on the generation fleet. First, I know the governor of Wisconsin is certainly making a claim against the EPA as part of his presidential bid. Any thoughts on how the CPP might impact your specific portfolio and CapEx plans?

Good morning, Andrew. This is Pat. The CPP rule is very different than the one that was originally proposed. So we’re still analyzing this and I can’t speak on behalf of our governor of course but we come from a state that has had always very good environmental rules, renewable and energy efficiency standards. So we will work with our states to make sure that we get implementation plans that work for us but right now we really need to spend the time understanding this new rule because it’s very different than the proposed rule.

Then the second question is on coal to gas switching, I mean in the short term, not the long term, I understand your gas plants have been running very efficiently at very high capacity factors year to date. What kind of impact does that have in terms of the near term and longer term dispatch plans and financials?

No, it really doesn’t impact anything whatsoever. As you are aware, the transition on our smaller coal fleet to natural gas and keep in mind we actually had natural gas already located at those sites. It’s really a transition for us to get us through the next few years as we talked about. That’s not a long-term solution. The long-term solution is to add new combined cycle generating facility to our fleet.

Then one other question on the load growth, I appreciate the high level of detail but maybe just an update on the trends in your local economies, especially the Wisconsin industrial side.

Andrew, this is Tom. If we kind of look at it more broad-based we continue to see a modest number of additional residential customers being added to our system but recognizing we are seeing residential use each go down. But we are seeing some expansion in the industrial sector of our business. So that gives you kind of a sense of where we’re at. So as I stated, we are anticipating about a 1% increase in sales year-over-year.

[Operator Instructions] We’ll go next to Paul Patterson of Paul Patterson of Glenrock Associates.

Just sort of circle back on Riverside. I guess what the question I sort of had is first of all, I mean this is more of a question for Wisconsin electric. But with the merger, it seems that they are saying that they are now coming up with a lot of extra capacity and that – as you indicated previously in the call, that they can replace Riverside. But I guess what my question is – what is it in Wisconsin that prevents utilities who were not merged from engaging this kind of what would seem to be a savings methodology, do you follow what I am saying? I mean this could have been done without a merger and I am wondering just in general how we should think about that.

Paul, we’ve been very deliberate in our process to make sure we have the lowest cost long-term solution for our customers. And I cannot speak on what WEnergy is thinking right now. And all we really know is what they filed at the Wisconsin Commission, believing that they have a short-term solution to offer to us which we have not seen, where they provided no details. So this is just a very new news and we’ve got to work through the process here and Wisconsin Commission is going to rule later this morning on if they're allowed to be involved in the case with another proposal.

I mean I guess, basically get interviewed in the cases [ph] I wouldn’t – I mean is that fair to give a utility in the neighborhood – I mean how much of a gating factor should we look at that being in terms of what their proposal is. I don’t get it. I mean that means that their proposal is unlikely to – but I mean in general though, I mean assuming that they are giving it, how should we think about that?

Yes, and Paul, it’s common that other utilities get interviewed in the status in the cases, that’s just very common as you follow the cases. So that’s not unusual. The unusual thing here is that at the 11th hour they want to provide another proposal and they were not part of the RFP process, they did not reply to any -- they did not provide any offers when we did the RFP. So this is a little unique.

Now you said that you’ve – just to clarify this. You did say that basically you looked at all these things and this is the cheapest cost. What about this idea of combining with the utilities I guess is what I am sort of wondering here now, like it seems kind of that Wisconsin with the merger with WPL was able to come up with some savings. I am just wondering, is there something that doesn’t allow utilities to cooperate in that manner without a merger?

Paul, just to be clear they merged with WPS.

I am sorry, WPS. I apologize.

That’s okay. No but they were – and again I prefer that you address this with WEnergy but we are not part of their IRP planning process.

But I am just wondering – generically, I am sorry to harp on this. I am just speaking generically. Is that something that you guys look at and when these plans are put forward, the idea of partnering with –

Now our IRP relates to our Wisconsin customers, Paul. We’ll talk to you later on this if you want to follow up. End of Q&A

Ms. Gille, there are no further questions at this time.