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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Just before a utilities lawyer and lobbyist was named the top regulator for electricity and power generation companies in Ohio, he received $ 4.3 million from the top executives of one of the companies whose fortunes would soon be in short supply. your hands.
In the months that followed, that company – FirstEnergy Corp. Akron-based – has won a series of legislative and regulatory victories worth well over $ 1 billion over time for the company and its subsidiaries, including a nuclear power plant rescue that is at the center of a $ 60 rescue million federal bribery investigation. Most of that bill would be paid by the state’s electricity consumers.
What investigators at the state and federal levels now want to know is whether Sam Randazzo, the public service lawyer who became a regulator who has since resigned, helped FirstEnergy in exchange for millions.
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The payment to a future official state meeting with the description of Randazzo received from the then executive of the utility giant in January 2019 is the subject of an ongoing audit by the Ohio Public Service Commission, which Randazzo chaired in April 2019 to last November, when he resigned under a cloud.
November corporate records differed in the descriptions provided to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission about the payment made by dismissed senior officials. FirstEnergy ‘s board of directors fired CEO Chuck Jones and two other executives weeks earlier for “violating certain FirstEnergy policies and its code of conduct”.
ARCHIVE – This undated archive photo provided by the Ohio governor’s office shows the former Ohio Public Utilities Commission, Sam Randazzo. State and federal officials are investigating whether Randazzo, the public service attorney who became a regulator and has since resided
FirstEnergy ‘s quarterly earnings report said the payment terminated a “purported consulting contract” that dated back to 2013. A recent investigation by the Energy and Policy Institute, a pro-renewable energy watchdog group, revealed a disclosure in loan documents that suggested that Randazzo was paid for future work, raising questions about what actions he could have taken as president of PUCO on behalf of FirstEnergy.
FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young declined to address the differences between the disclosures. Reached by the Associated Press, Randazzo declined to comment.
NOPEC CEO Chuck Keiper, Ohio’s largest nonprofit energy aggregator, called the revelations in the documents “shocking.” He said in a statement that they raise questions “whether there was something nefarious going on” at PUCO.
NOPEC is fighting FirstEnergy and PUCO at the Ohio Supreme Court for what they claim was an illegal decision taken by Randazzo in early 2020.
Commissioners granted a new FirstEnergy subsidiary permission to sell electricity to customers without allowing competitors such as NOPEC and the Ohio Consumer Council to intervene and oppose the move. They claimed that the subsidiary shared senior managers with FirstEnergy, in violation of Ohio law.
Randazzo was involved in other actions while presiding over activities for the benefit of FirstEnergy companies. The most significant was House Bill 6, the $ 1 billion nuclear rescue project.
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Ohio Mayor then Larry Householder, a Republican, and four associates, were arrested and charged with federal extortion charges in July, accused of orchestrating a secretly elaborated scheme funded by FirstEnergy to secure Householder power, elect your allies and pass the now contaminated charge. The legislation was promoted as a plan to guarantee the future of two old nuclear power plants, then operated by a wholly owned subsidiary of FirstEnergy.
Documents summoned by the FBI showed that Randazzo had a significant role in drafting the rescue project.
The calendars obtained by the AP through a request for public records further show that Randazzo met with Governor and Republican Governor Mike DeWine at the governor’s residence for an “energy discussion” in April 2019. That was less than two weeks later that Randazzo became president of PUCO and a day later, the rescue project was presented. He also met in 2019 with male policy advisers, as well as other government officials.
DeWine’s office said in response to a request for separate records that there was no further documentation of the meeting. The AP reported on December 10 that DeWine in early 2019 ignored alarm calls about Randazzo’s close ties to FirstEnergy before naming him on the commission. DeWine kept the decision.
In addition to the nuclear rescue, HB6 included a bespoke revenue guarantee for FirstEnergy estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars over time.
The Citizens’ Utility Board of Ohio, a small taxpayer advocacy group, said Randazzo and PUCO ensured that guaranteed profits would continue into the future when they decided in November 2019 that FirstEnergy dealerships in Ohio could waive a traditional fee-setting process that would have opened your books and deleted.
“President Randazzo remained visibly silent about the failures of the profit guarantee while it was pending in the Legislature, and then he presided over a decision by PUCO that allowed it to continue indefinitely,” said CUB Executive Director Tom Bullock.
With Randazzo no longer in charge of PUCO, the commission reversed the decision in late December, ordering the FirstEnergy 2024 tax case to go ahead.
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FirstEnergy agreed two months later, in an agreement with Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, to give up the $ 100 million in guaranteed revenue scheduled to flow to its three electric utilities this year.
In December, a Columbus County judge blocked the collection and distribution of the HB6 fee established for nuclear power plants. Since then, Energy Harbor, the independent company that took over the ownership of FirstEnergy ‘s two nuclear power plants and other assets in February 2020, has indicated that it may no longer want the money.
Ohio Legislative Inspector General Tony Bledsoe said Randazzo never registered to lobby on behalf of FirstEnergy or Energy Harbor.
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Gillispie reported from Cleveland.