Strings Attached: How utilities use charitable giving to influence politics and increase investor profits
"Other non-profit organizations have also received funding from FirstEnergy and backed proposals to bail out the utility’s coal and nuclear power plants.
In 2019, Laura Jones, the executive director of Leadership Ashtabula, provided testimony in support of the bill that bailed out the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants in Ohio, which are now operated by the bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions.
Leadership Ashtabula also submitted comments to FERC supporting Perry’s 2017 bailout proposal. The group received $4,000 from the FirstEnergy Foundation in 2017.
Beth Hannam, executive director of the Sandusky County Economic Development Corporation (SCEDC), testified in support of the 2019 bailout bill. The SCEDC received $3,000 from FirstEnergy Foundation in 2017.
A metadata analysis found the name of an outside lobbyist for FirstEnergy Solutions at the Dewey Square Group listed as the “author” of Hannam’s testimony.
Hans Rosebrook, for FirstEnergy Corp., serves on the SCEDC’s board of directors and capital campaign and strategic plan committee.
Applicants for grants from the FirstEnergy Foundations are encouraged to contact the local external affairs manager for FirstEnergy for their community. The company’s external affairs managers serve in leadership roles in some of the nonprofits the foundation funds."
-- The Energy and Policy Institute