FILE – In this Feb. 1, 2006, file photo, Duke Energy Corporate headquarters in a Charlotte, North Carolina, is shown. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond, File)

A high-ranking in-house lawyer at Duke Energy Corp. is facing criticism after he compared a rate hike to the price of a McDonald's restaurant Extra Value Meal during a regulatory board hearing Monday.

According to a report on WRAL.com, Lawrence “Bo” Somers, deputy general counsel at the North Carolina-based power giant, was responding to claims that a rate increase of $5.99 would pose financial difficulty to some when he said, “One extra Big Mac, fries and a drink.”

But a spokeswoman for the company contends the comments attributed to Somers were “distorted” and that his remarks were “misrepresented.”

Somers was speaking before the North Carolina Utilities Commission during a hearing to evaluate the company's proposed rate increase. The proposal calls for raising the fee for residential customers linked into the company's grid from $11.80 per month to $17.79 per month—an increase of $5.99, which, WRAL reported, is currently the price of a Big Mac value meal from McDonald's.

The news story reported that Somers' “metaphor struck some in the audience … as coarse.”

It quoted comments that Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Gudrun Thompson made after day one of the scheduled weeklong hearing adjourned Monday: “For a Duke representative to suggest that the company's low-income customers can deal with the proposed $5.99 hike in the monthly mandatory fee on their bill by eating one less McDonald's value meal per month is just insulting,” Thompson is reported as saying.

The nonprofit advocacy group SELC is one of the groups fighting the rate increase, according to WRAL. Thompson could not be reached for direct comment on Tuesday.

Somers and Duke's top lawyer, Julie Janson, executive vice president for external affairs, chief legal officer and corporate secretary, also could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

A company spokeswoman said, however, that the comments attributed to Somers were “badly distorted,” noting that “Somers never said that customers could cover the rate increase by eating fewer Big Macs “but rather was trying to put the proposed $5.99 monthly increase into perspective.

Spokeswoman Meredith Archie also said that “comments [in the article] from certain intervenors”—presumably SELC's Thompson, the only person besides Somers and Archie directly quoted in the story—”misrepresented” Somers' remarks.

Somers “expressed empathy with customers who have testified that they cannot afford such a $5.99 monthly increase,” Archie said in an email. “An official transcript will be available in the coming days that will clarify the issue.

“I can assure you that Mr. Somers did not intend to offend anyone with this comparison. Duke Energy doesn't take any rate increase lightly, and we are committed to providing customers with reliable and increasingly clean energy at the lowest possible price.”

Somers joined Duke's legal department in 2001, working his way up the ranks to deputy GC, a position he has held since February 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile.