{"id":3157,"date":"2020-07-31T16:52:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T16:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3157"},"modified":"2020-07-31T16:52:43","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T16:52:43","slug":"an-fbi-investigation-shows-ohios-abysmal-energy-law-was-fueled-by-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3157","title":{"rendered":"An FBI investigation shows Ohio\u2019s abysmal energy law was fueled by corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The Ohio case, while extreme, is not an aberration. Corrupt electric utilities using ratepayer funds to roll back climate policy is not limited to Ohio. As I described in Short Circuiting Policy<\/em><\/a>, it is an unfortunately common pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the Illinois utility ComEd \u2014 whose parent company is Exelon \u2014 admitted to engaging in bribery<\/a> and agreed to pay a $200 million fine. It\u2019s very likely that another speaker, Michael Madigan, is involved in that case \u2014 the Illinois governor has already called on him to resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In Arizona, which I examine in my book<\/a>, the FBI similarly launched an investigation into an elected official over its ties to a private electric utility, Arizona Public Service. As we now know, Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Gary Pierce met privately with then-Arizona Public Service CEO Don Brandt numerous times<\/a>. The utility also funneled over $700,000 through a dark money group to Pierce\u2019s son\u2019s failed bid<\/a> for secretary of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Arizona Public Service also secretly spent tens of millions on campaigns to elect its own regulators in order to secure favorable decisions, including clean energy rollbacks and generous rate hikes. In 2018 alone, it spent upward of $40 million<\/a> to successfully block a clean energy ballot initiative. The new CEO, Jeff Guldner, played a key role<\/a> in directing the utility\u2019s dark political spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this isn\u2019t a new strategy. Throughout the 1990s, electric utilities including FirstEnergy and Arizona Public Service were key funders<\/a> of climate denial.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The dogged folks at the\u00a0Energy and Policy Institute<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a utility watchdog that has turned up real-time facts in most of these cases \u2014 paint a clear picture for those paying attention: Most electric utilities are resisting the clean energy transition and using corruption to do it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/7\/22\/21334366\/larry-householder-affidavit-ohio-bribery-firstenergy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Ohio case, while extreme, is not an aberration. Corrupt electric utilities using ratepayer funds to roll back climate policy is not limited to Ohio. As I described in Short Circuiting Policy, it is an unfortunately common pattern.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Illinois utility ComEd \u2014 whose parent company is Exelon \u2014 admitted to engaging in bribery and agreed to pay a $200 million fine. It\u2019s very likely that another speaker, Michael Madigan, is involved in that case \u2014 the Illinois governor has already called on him to resign.<\/p>\n

In Arizona, which I examine in my book, the FBI similarly launched an investigation into an elected official over its ties to a private electric utility, Arizona Public Service. As we now know, Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Gary Pierce met privately with then-Arizona Public Service CEO Don Brandt numerous times. The utility also funneled over $700,000 through a dark money group to Pierce\u2019s son\u2019s failed bid for secretary of state.<\/p>\n

Arizona Public Service also secretly spent tens of millions on campaigns to elect its own regulators in order to secure favorable decisions, including clean energy rollbacks and generous rate hikes. In 2018 alone, it spent upward of $40 million to successfully block a clean energy ballot initiative. The new CEO, Jeff Guldner, played a key role in directing the utility\u2019s dark political spending.<\/p>\n

And this isn\u2019t a new strategy. Throughout the 1990s, electric utilities including FirstEnergy and Arizona Public Service were key funders of climate denial.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The dogged folks at the Energy and Policy Institute \u2014 a utility watchdog that has turned up real-time facts in most of these cases \u2014 paint a clear picture for those paying attention: Most electric utilities are resisting the clean energy transition and using corruption to do it.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[237,951,235,234,103,33],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-clean-energy","tag-corruption","tag-energy","tag-energy-policy","tag-environment","tag-fbi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3158,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions\/3158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}