Recent news

How Ohio’s controversial HB 6 law pandemic-proofed utilities’ revenue

The power plant bailout law included what experts call a distorted version of decoupling that guaranteed utility’s revenue regardless of a downturn in electricity demand.

COLUMBUS -- "In Ohio, FirstEnergy and other utilities had less to worry about, though, thanks to a measure in the state’s controversial power plant bailout law that cut the link between revenues and the amount of electricity sold.

The concept is known as decoupling, and it’s usually used as a tool to overcome utilities’ financial disincentive to invest in energy efficiency and conservation. Utilities that help customers conserve energy still collect the money they need to cover costs and a reasonable return for investors.

In Ohio, however, lawmakers didn’t use decoupling to offset losses due to energy conservation. Instead, HB 6, the law at the heart of an alleged corruption conspiracy, gave utilities that spoonful of sugar without any medicine. In fact, HB 6 eliminated energy efficiency standards for Ohio utilities.

The end result: Amid a pandemic that saw the state’s economy falter, FirstEnergy’s utilities were guaranteed steady revenues — at the expense of ratepayers struggling to make ends meet."

-- Kathiann M Kowalski, Energy News Network

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Time to hold Republicans accountable for HB 6 and all it represents

Nan Whaley, mayor of Dayton.

DAYTON -- "FirstEnergy and other utility companies allegedly spent tens of millions of dollars in bribes and dark-money GOP campaign contributions in exchange for a billion-dollar bailout paid for by fees tacked onto your monthly electric bill. These fees apply to every family and business in Ohio, even if, like me, you don’t get your electricity from FirstEnergy. As part of this alleged plot, Republican politicians got millions of dollars, and you’re supposed to foot the bill.

None of that is being disputed by Gov. Mike DeWine or the Republicans in the legislature. And yet they’ve done essentially nothing to hold the perpetrators accountable or change this awful policy. Even now, their loyalty to FirstEnergy is playing out in real time.

Despite knowing how HB 6 came to be, the GOP legislature has left it in place, all but ignoring a bipartisan effort to repeal this awful law. They know FirstEnergy, identified as “Company A” in federal charging documents, is alleged to have bribed its way into a massive bailout, but they’re willing to let the energy companies get away with it. Even wilder, they haven’t even expelled Householder, who is charged with helping orchestrate the whole thing, from the Ohio House. Their inaction makes clear where their allegiance lies."

--Nan Whaley, guest columnist, cleveland.com

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Mailings linked to FirstEnergy sought to erode residents’ confidence in Cleveland Public Power, city officials say

CLEVELAND -- "At the bottom of each [flier] was the name of the group criticizing the city-owned utility, a nonprofit called Consumers Against Deceptive Fees. This month, city officials discussed the fliers and mailings and those behind the nonprofit during a hearing of Cleveland City Council’s Finance Committee. They stressed that the goal of the leaflets was clear: to erode the confidence of residents in CPP.

Today, Consumers Against Deceptive Fees, its fliers and the push to help CPP customers are gone. The only reminder of the nonprofit is its link to the largest bribery scandal in Ohio history, the tainted passage of House Bill 6.

Records obtained last month show that $200,000 from FirstEnergy flowed to Consumers Against Deceptive Fees in 2019 through another nonprofit that acted as a pass-through, Partners for Progress. The latter group was mentioned in an FBI affidavit filed in July that detailed a $60-million bribery scheme to pass a $1 billion legislative bailout of two nuclear plants once owned by a FirstEnergy subsidiary."

-- John Caniglia, cleveland.com

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Toledo looks to join lawsuit blocking H.B. 6 nuclear bailout fees

TOLEDO -- "The city of Toledo has asked to join a lawsuit that claims the subsidies that were set to be added to every Ohioans’ electric bills on Jan. 1 are unconstitutional and the result of “a scheme to corrupt the legislative process.”

It’s the latest reaction to a $1 billion nuclear bailout law, House Bill 6, at the center of a $60 million bribery probe. The suit was filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in October by the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, and now both Toledo and Dayton are asking to join as well.

...'Toledo is joining a coalition of cities that are banding together to hold first energy and others accountable for H.B. 6,' said Ari Scharg, an attorney with Chicago-based Edelson, which is representing all four cities in the lawsuit."

-- Toledo Blade

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DeWine rejects list of nominees for Ohio utility commission

Four names were submitted to DeWine in December by the council as potential replacements for former PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo

COLUMBUS (AP) — "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine faced swift criticism from consumer advocates Wednesday after he rejected the entire slate of candidates nominated to replace a former top state utility regulator tainted by a $60 million federal bribery investigation and requested a new list...

Four names were submitted to DeWine in December by the council as potential replacements for former PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo, who resigned Nov. 20.

Randazzo stepped down days after an FBI search of his Columbus townhome and a revelation by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., the utility at the center of the bribery scandal, that it had paid the firm of a state official meeting Randazzo’s description $4 million in early 2019 to terminate a long-term consulting relationship.

'Why would Gov. DeWine turn away professionals with extensive utility market experience and consumer advocacy expertise who could have brought a fresh start and much-needed perspective to a PUCO that is currently in the shadows of scandal?' asked Rachael Belz, director of the Ohio Consumers Power Alliance, in a statement.

'Unless Gov. DeWine is willing to provide us with his reasons for rejecting these candidates,' she added, 'it begs the question as to who exactly is steering the ship in Ohio — Gov. DeWine or the utilities?'"

— JULIE CARR SMYTH and MARK GILLISPIE, The Associated Press

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FBI investigation revealed vast FirstEnergy-backed political network hidden through lax state disclosure rules

FirstEnergy headquarters in Akron

COLUMBUS – "Legal filings and media reports over the past six months gradually have peeled back the layers of a dark-money political network funded by FirstEnergy, the Akron-based utility company.

But because state and federal law don’t require political nonprofits to disclose their donors, the only reason the public knows about anything about the utility’s ties to the expansive constellation of Ohio political causes is the federal investigation into House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout law which prosecutors say passed due to a $61 million bribery scheme, funded by FirstEnergy and its affiliates through secret or difficult to trace political donations.

The U.S. attorney overseeing the case, David DeVillers, said anonymous political spending played a key role in the scandal. 'Dark money is a breeding ground for corruption,' he said in a statement shortly after then-House Speaker Larry Householder and others were arrested last July, revealing the investigation."

– Andrew Tobias, cleveland.com

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Ohio regulators set to officially pause nuclear bailout fees created through tainted energy bill

"Perry Nuclear Power Plant Marks 30 Years of Safe and Reliable Operation by FirstEnergy Corp. is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0"

COLUMBUS — "Ohio’s top lawyer asked a court Thursday to block FirstEnergy Corp. from collecting special fees from customers that were set up under a now-tainted nuclear bailout bill to allow the company to maintain record-high profits even if electricity sales dip.

Republican Attorney General Dave Yost filed his request in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, where a judge already has blocked fees that House Bill 6 established for bailing out two nuclear power plants operated by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, Energy Harbor.

The bill is at the center of a $60 million federal bribery probe that alleges Larry Householder, the state House speaker at the time, used the money to politically position and succeed at passing the bailout bill. Householder and four others charged have pleaded not guilty.

Yost said customers also should not have to pay the $102 million that FirstEnergy is set to collect in 2021 through a 'perverse form a decoupling' that not only unlinked how much the company makes from how much electricity it sells but guaranteed it maintain the level of profits at record-high 2018 levels."

— Associated Press, The Toledo Blade

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600+ groups urge Biden to halt water, electricity, and broadband shutoffs through emergency Executive Order on day 1

WASHINGTON, DC - "More than 600 utility-justice, environmental, racial justice, labor, and faith groups delivered a letter today to President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris urging their administration to halt utility shutoffs nationwide to protect public health. 

The No Shutoffs Coalition, which has advocated for a federal moratorium on utility shutoffs since the COVID-19 crisis began, presented Biden with a draft Executive Order that would instruct the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to use her authority under the Public Health Service Act to enact a national moratorium on residential disconnections of all water, electricity, broadband, heat and other necessary utility services for nonpayment. 

The proposed order, which would also mandate safe restoration to previously disconnected homes, would last the full duration of the COVID national emergency and at least 12 months following its end. 

'No American—regardless of the color of their skin, their zip code, or their income—should ever have to choose between heating their homes, keeping the lights on, the broadband they need to work or learn remotely, and putting food on the table. That’s especially true in the middle of a global pandemic, where public health experts are emphasizing how important it is that each of us stay home to stay safe,' said U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley. 'While many states and utility companies have stepped up to do the right thing, many families are still just a missed payment away from losing critical utilities in the middle of this public health and economic emergency. For all of us to get through this together we need to have a national disconnection moratorium that ensures that no family is left behind in the patchwork of policies.'" 

- Press Release by: Food & Water Watch, Free Press Action, Center for Biological Diversity, Corporate Accountability, The Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE), and The Democracy Collaborative

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Citizens' Utility Board pushes for more protections for Cleveland residents

CLEVELAND -- "A consumer protection group is calling on Cleveland City Council to do more to protect residents from rising utility costs.

The Citizens Utility Board of Ohio (CUB) told council members on Tuesday that Clevelanders are the ones who end up paying, literally, for Cleveland Public Power’s (CPP) bad contracts.

CPP rates are now higher than FirstEnergy’s, said Sandy Buchanan CUB member and executive director at the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis. CPP contracts with the American Municipal Power (AMP) group to purchase its power, Buchanan said, and those contracts are costing Cleveland residents far more than they should.

'Our organization estimates that these two contracts alone have cost CPP ratepayers $106 million more for power than customers would have paid if CPP had bought the electricity from regional wholesale markets,' Buchanan said."

-- Taylor Haggerty, NPR's Ideastream

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Cleveland City Council members might subpoena FirstEnergy, citing efforts to undermine CPP

CLEVELAND – "Cleveland City Council might subpoena leaders of FirstEnergy to testify about so-called dark money that investigators have linked to the utility and that ended up in a campaign against Cleveland Public Power.

During a briefing Monday, some council members called for the unusual step of issuing a subpoena because court filings identify FirstEnergy as “Company A” that bankrolled the effort to undermine city-owned CPP.

'The player that I want to focus on is Company A,' Councilman Blaine Griffin said. 'Company A clearly is trying to influence Cleveland. … We need to, in addition to looking at this dark money, we really need to illuminate Company A.'

Council launched an investigation in August to determine whether any parties accused in a statehouse corruption scandal related to legislative bailouts for two nuclear plants and two coal plants also sought to harm CPP."

– Robert Higgs, cleveland.com

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