florida power and light scandal
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reported this story with Mario Ariza of Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. During his decade-long tenure as FPL chief, Silagy oversaw billions of dollars worth of power plant conversions from coal and oil to natural gas electric generation. ABC News cut ties with the producer immediately following that report. Florida Power & Light denied any wrongdoing related to political campaigns. Reporting by the Orlando Sentinel and the Miami Herald tied Silagy to a group of political consultants who had spent millions of dollars to secretly further the power company's political goals. As you may know, Gera is NextEra Energys Vice President and Chief Litigation Officer. Under Floridas current arrangement, homes and businesses that generate less than 2 megawatts of solar power can sell the excess back to their utility in exchange for a bill credit of 11 cents per kWh. Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. FPL consultants secretly took command, control of Florida news website, reports say, Surveillance records at the heart of a tangled mess between FPL and a former consultant, none more enticing than the city's century-old municipal utility, JEA, dispatching one of the few incumbents who was publicly critical of the company, resulted in criminal charges against JEA's former CEO and CFO, to kill one of the utility's highest legislative priorities, uncharacteristically backed off a winter-hardeningproposal that critics alleged could have led to costly customer charges, had this Times-Union columnist surveilled, orchestrated a financial takeover of a small Tallahassee-based political news site with a conservativebent, planting seeds intended to underminepublic confidence in the Jacksonville agency, offering a job to Garrett Dennis, a member of the Jacksonville City Council who had been outspoken against selling JEA, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Promote the @&;$&!!! Its parent company, NextEra Energy, has commissioned two separate investigations - one internal, one by an outside law firm - following reporting by Florida newspapers, the non-profit news outlet Floodlight and NPR. The utility doesnt want to be associated with this campaign.. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. Its also up to us to push them more. Records obtained by Floodlight and the Orlando Sentinel show that Matrix consulted for FPL, as well as another Florida company, Gulf Power, and Alabama Power. "And we support organizations who had that mission.". "I want you to make his life a living hell seriously," Silagy wrote in a 2019 email to two of his vice-presidents about one of the Democratic state senators whose 2020 electoral contest was complicated by a spoiler candidate. The nuclear project was part of what the group deemed a "record of failure," rhetoric that borea remarkable similarity to the talking points later used by the mayor and privatization supporters to justify selling JEA. A Birmingham mayor who employed Matrix got 15 years for bribery, conspiracy and fraud. And the job was to come with one key hitch: To accept it, Dennis would have to leave his council position. Matrix grew so large that by 2015 it was operating several private aircraft to whisk Pitts and Perkins to client meetings. However, those policies are coming under fire as utilities become increasingly concerned about how the growth of distributed solar energy affects their bottom line. And Burgess himself seemed to recognize it was an unlikely proposal, lamenting that "they are such douchebag newspaper people they added the poison pill to prevent ahostil [sic] takeover, even if it costs them hundreds of millions in stock value" (it's not clear in his email what the alleged"poison pill" is supposed to have been). If were trying to look all in, theres a whole lot to consider upstream from just the burning of the fuel., FPLs McGrath said the Find Energyreport also doesnt tell the companys whole modernization story.. Ketchum also reiterated that when he was named to the NextEra CEO role after Jim Robo stepped down, Silagy had committed to Ketchum that he would lead FPL for at least one more year. Florida Power & Light customers who paid $101.70 last year for a typical monthly bill of 1,000 . Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. But advocates fear that a FPL-drafted bill to rewrite the states net metering rules will slowly chip away at the main financial incentive for homeowners and businesses to go solar. He said what he found was deeply disturbing. After an early round of reports, NextEra commissioned an internal investigation into the allegations against Silagy and Florida Power & Light in Florida. Maggie Shober, research director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, agreed that the report shows just one of many ways to look at emissions. In the remarkably successful years of its ambitious expansionism, secret records show FPL may have also been sowing the seeds of its more uncertain present. The Matrix saga illustrates the political obstacles policymakers and experts face as they attempt to cut climate pollution from the power sector, one of the biggest greenhouse gas contributors in the US. Forgive me for being unserious at a time when companies like Florida Power & Light (FPL)the nation's largest utilitykeep racking up scandals, but it's kind of hard to keep track of the. The company conducted an internal investigation and "found no evidence of any issues at all, any illegality or any wrongdoing on the part of FPL or any of its employees. Source: Orlando Sentinel Florida Power & Light execs worked closely with consultants behind 'ghost' candidate scheme, records reveal | Special Report By JASON GARCIA and ANNIE MARTIN ORLANDO SENTINEL | DEC 02, 2021 AT 9:46 AM Top executives at utility giant Florida Power & Light worked closely with the political consultants who orchestrated a scheme to promote spoiler candidates in three . We're advancing solar energy in Florida and you can too with our solar programs. He argued that customers with rooftop solar are being subsidized by other customers who continue to buy electricity and pay to maintain the power grid. Duke has 2 million customers, followed by TECO with 800,000 . FPL has repeatedly denied any involvement in the "ghost candidate" controversy stemming from the 2020 election cycle, but Matrix records show the company's consultants were deeply involved. Alissa Jean Schafer is a research and communications specialist at the Energy and Policy Institute. January 25, 2023 That proposal was forwarded to Silagy at FPL but never came to fruition. From the beginning, Matrix showed no aversion to unsavory political tactics. Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. More: Solar advocates push for last-minute changes to net metering bills, Solar center: FPL blows up its last coal-fired power plant; announces plans for its newest solar center, Electric bill goes up: Your next Florida Power & Light electric bill is going way up. FPL argued that it is more cost-effective to build a power plant than to invest in energy-efficiency programs because building codes and energy-efficiency standards in consumer products have improved. He is a former federal prosecutor with experience in public corruption cases.. President and CEO of Florida Power & Light Eric Silagy speaks to the media after FPL imploded its last Florida . In all, the centerproduces enough electricity for 750,000 homes and businesses. Matrix was never accused of wrongdoing. The state senator went on to lose re-election by six votes. Electricity companies like Florida Power & Light make money off of the things they build: mainly large power plants and the power lines that bring that energy to customers. There are reasons to prefer alternatives that are not fossil-fuel intensive. The media reports were cited in an October 2022 Federal Election Commission complaint against several of the "dark money" non-profit organizations that received corporate funds. (Neither Alabama Power nor its corporate parent, Southern Company, have commented on those disclosures.). The job was to be with a shell nonprofit created by Matrix employees that supported marijuana decriminalization and, on its face, had no connection to FPL. View dataset here. independent local journalism in Miami. Matrix also exerted political influence through the press, with its operatives acquiring control of a Tallahassee-based politics news site, The Capitolist. Landlords would be able to. FPL emerged from that episode empty handed, a particularly punishing outcome in the world of investor-owned utilities, which are locked in a rat race to grow bigger or die. Moving Florida toward a brighter energy future. The issue extends to several states. Asked by Wall Street analysts during an earnings call on Wednesday whether Silagy's retirement was in any way prompted by those reports, the parent company's chief executive asserted that was not the case. An analyst at Seaport Global, a capital-markets firm, said recent reporting on FPL has "made us reassess FPL's risks" and that the research firm has "grown uncomfortable" with the "growing media scrutiny of FPLs lobbying practices against distributed solar and retail choice (deregulation), among others. Burning natural gas results in about half of the carbon dioxide emissions of burning coal, which also releases harmful metals and gases into the environment. According to FPL, the plant also has the best available and most advanced emission-control equipment.. 11:52AM. In all races, the Republican won the election. There was no question the company would be the leading bidder almost by default. FPL has also said an internal investigation ordered by its board of directors cleared the company's employees of any wrongdoing; it has also refused to provide copies of that investigation. A note of gratitude to our friends at the Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight News, with whom we have worked in partnership to report our stories. The mayor, Lenny Curry, was ideologically predisposed to privatize a large government agency like JEA, and both the official and political arms of his office were surrounded by friends of FPL. Florida Power & Light is the largest electric utility in the state, serving more than 11 million people across vast swaths of Florida. Very early on in this bills ride, I think it has a real chance to settle out in a way that most parties are not upset, he said. The firm later recovered more than a million files, according to Perkins, who said they reveal years of hidden, shadow work in Florida. But in the years that followed, FPL would loosen the grip of its dependence on oil-powered plants, including demolishing a 1960s-era Riviera Beach oil plant, with its memorable red-and-white smokestacks, and rebuilding it in 2014 as a natural gas plant. In other words, FPL's gas-fired plant produced almost 20% more power but with a third of the emissions as the coal-powered plant. NPR and Floodlight also reported in December that people working at Florida Power & Light's political consulting firm had paid a veteran ABC News freelance producer to try to trip up politicians who took stances opposed to the energy utility's economic interests. The majority of Florida Power & Light (FPL) contributions have been to the Florida Republican Party, GOP committees and candidates, and political committees associated with corporate special interests. Earlier this year, current PSC members, appointed by Gov. In 2018, Perkins Communications received at least $1.49m from Alabama Power, a leaked contract shows. A short-lived organization called "Fix JEA Now" registered a web domain in 2017 and began making dramatic claims about the city-owned utility. View MapReport Outage About FPL Company News Careers Environment Community Donate to Care To Share Rates and Your Bill Still, there could be some benefit for consumers to be cognizant of a plants overall emissions, if its not the only factor being considered, she said. The last year of Silagy's leadership was marked by high natural gas prices; the global supply chain crisis; two disastrous hurricanes; and a barrage of damning media reports. The plan ultimately failed, and Stoddard was re-elected. That same year, a consultant told the Jacksonville City Council that taking JEA privatewould "likelyrepresent the largest and most complex" transaction of its kind in the United States. Silagy, the FPL CEO, says the pair initially told him they had come to an amicable agreement about parting ways. The regulated monopoly is generally seen as a safe, stable investment, but there is some sign the recent public scrutiny could mushroom into a larger problem for FPL. Otherwise, DeSantis has been largely friendly to NextEra and FPLs legislative priorities, granting the utility $2.75 million in tax breaks on speculative green hydrogen, signing legislation that gave FPL permission to charge customers tens of billions of dollars for burying lines, signing legislation preventing gas bans that would have aided Florida City Gas, and also signing legislation that forced the resignation of utility critic JR Kelly from his leadership of the Office of Public Counsel, which represents ratepayers in rate cases. Overall, McGrath said the modernization improvements have made their plants 30% more efficient, saved customers more than $11 billion in fuel and kept 165 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted in the atmosphere. Also, after reports that an outside FPL consultant had tailed a Florida Times-Union journalist who reported critically on the utility, Silagy sat down with reporters to deny that FPL had ever directed anyone to monitor him. We are investing in clean energy because its the right thing to do for our customers. McClures political committee, Conservative Florida, did not receive any utility money during this time but on Nov. 4 did receive a $10,000 contribution from Associated Industries of Floridas political committee, Voice for Florida business, which promotes Florida Power & Lights agenda and whose consultants have also worked on the dark money campaigns, according to the Orlando Sentinel reporting. Yet great amounts of power come at a price. Over the course of DeSantis tenure, he used that veto power once to block an anti-rooftop solar bill written by FPL. When the small south Florida citys mayor helped pass an ordinance in 2017 mandating rooftop solar panels on new construction, a network of 10 FPL-aligned operatives mobilized to ensure his ouster. For example, in documents obtained by reporters, Silagy had emailed two of his vice presidents to make a state senator's "life a living hell" after proposing a pro-solar bill. Within minutes, one of them forwarded the directive to the CEO of Matrix, LLC, a powerful but little-known political consulting firm that has operated behind the scenes in at least eight states. The company is making renewable energy investments, including: Patino-Echeverri said the utility industry as a whole is making strides to make its plants more efficient. And then apparently, somewhere along the way, Jeff and Joe got sideways, Silagy said. $2.75 million in tax breaks on speculative green hydrogen, tens of billions of dollars for burying lines, 2018 state senate race in Gainesville, FL, secured a deal to freeze FPL rates in 2005 as Attorney General, opposed FPLs $1.3 billion rate increase in 2009, calling the utility out for raising its rates on Floridians, largest donation FPL had ever made at the time, Utility front groups spending on disinformation advertising. They proposed offering a job to Garrett Dennis, a member of the Jacksonville City Council who had been outspoken against selling JEA. We are committed to being as clean as we can as fast as we can without sacrificing reliability or affordability, McGrath said. Terry Dunn wanted to examine why Alabama Power charged some of the highest rates in the country. Under the scheme, a candidate with no political background was on the ballot as a no-party option in an effort to confuse voters and dilute support for the Democrat in the race, helping Republicans maintain their majority in the state Senate. Under Bradleys bill, net-metering customers whose solar panels deliver energy back to the utility grid would no longer receive credits based on the retail cost of energy, but instead receive credits based on a lower wholesale cost. FPLs consultants used similar spoiler candidate tactics in the 2020 election cycle in three senate races throughout the state. Feds Plan to Seize Russian Oligarch's Luxe Fisher Island Properties, Miami Canal Flooded With Turd Water From Contractor-Involved Pipe Break, Collapse of "Let's Go Brandon" Meme Coin Sparks Billion-Dollar Court Battle, Gator Gets in on the Action at Tampa Bay Horse Race, Readers Warn of Traffic, "Bloodsport" Driving After. The effort to privatize Jacksonville's utility imploded in scandal and recrimination, prompting a two-year federal investigation that resulted in criminal charges against JEA's former CEO and CFO. "We're not making a connection" between the reports and Silagy's retirement, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on the earnings call. Net metering is a popular program that gives people the right to choose the energy that works for them, provides benefits to all ratepayers and creates thousands of energy jobs across Florida.. The fact that (West County Energy Center is) using natural gas is a plus, Matt Hope, chief operating officer of Find Energy, said inrecognizing that the report factors in a plants efficiency, but doesnt focus on it. . NextEra officials say that investigation is close to completion. Just as well, such a reliance on natural gas leaves consumers susceptible to the volatility of gas prices. In a 2020 email, Burgess wrote a former Matrix employee with an idea they could "cobble together however many millions of dollars it would take to buy ALL the Florida newspapers from Gannett and then we could let most of the clown reporters go, save a fortune, eliminate print, and syndicate content across the entire state.". We may need some portion of our energy to still come from fossil fuels, because there are industrial processes that are hard to electrify, she said. It ranks third among states for installed solar capacity, although much of that is large-scale, utility-owned solar. Reporting, primarily by the Orlando Sentinel, showed spoiler candidates in three state Senate races in 2020 were propped up by at least a half-million dollars from dark-money groups in an effort to help damage the Democrats in those races and help Republicans control the chamber. A dark money non-profit called "Grow United" is at the center of the scandal, with records showing direct communication with and invoices to FPL. Any report or suggestion that we had involvement in, financially supported or directed others to support any ghost candidates during the 2020 election cycle is patently false, and we have found absolutely no evidence of any legal wrongdoing by FPL or its employees, McGrath, the Florida Power & Light spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. Switching from oil or coal to natural gas is a very important step, but thats not enough, she said, adding that carbon capture, utilization and storage technology must be considerationsto further reduce emissions. Taken together, the internal Matrix records depict a group of well-resourced executives and their enablers who have nurtured twisted views of theFirst Amendment and American democracy, and who have little hesitation over going to remarkable and troubling lengths to achieve their goals. Matrix consultants had little regard for the professional press. Even some environmental advocates say the change is fair and necessary because of the fast rate of rooftop solar development in that state. Rooftop solar, while critical to fighting climate change, is a threat to the traditional utility business model. That month, FPL announced a planned purchase ofGulf Power, expanding its reach for the first time into the Florida Panhandle, and in the process snatching away a lucrative asset from regional rival Southern Company, which had owned Gulf since 1925. Last June, Florida Power & Light spokesperson David Reuter wrote that the initial review had exonerated the company: "This detailed report found no evidence of illegality or wrongdoing on the part of FPL or any of its employees." [But] now we have this incredible corruption and a reversal of that because they are using their advantage to hang on to power and undermine democracy, he said. Pitts at the time forwarded a draft of the script to two FPL executives. At the Birmingham office where Pitts and the others had worked, Perkins said he found a backup server that appeared to have been beaten with something. "We contributeto organizations where we're aligned on what the ultimate goal is, and from the standpoint of having the Senate at the time, who was being led by (Senate President) Wilton Simpson, continue to be able to be led by Wilton Simpson,I was a fan of that," FPL CEO Eric Silagy, recently told me and several other journalists with the Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight in a wide-ranging interview in Jacksonville. Investigative reporters have directly connected senior FPL executives, including CEO Eric Silagy, to consultants involved in the dark money campaign schemes. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy was directly involved in steering funds to dark-money groups led by the consultants who controlled Grow United, the organization used to promote the ghost candidates, according to documents obtained by the Sentinel. small-scale solar capacity in the state. In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics, She was an ABC News producer. Customers who are already using rooftop solar power before 2023 would be grandfathered in and keep their previous compensation rates for 10 years. Florida is one of 47 states that allow households and businesses that produce power to sell it back to the grid at a set rate. In comparison, the top carbon-emitting plant on the list is a coal-powered one in Missouri that produced 16.5 million megawatt hours of energy but emitted almost 1,009 kilograms of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour less energy, but more emissions. COMMENTARY | Just a 14-minute drive from Florida Power & Light'sheadquarters in Juno Beach is the easternmost point in the state, where the sun's radiant light first cracks the night skyeach morning. The complaint implicated Florida Power & Light in election law violations because of alleged attempts to obscure the source of the political donations. Florida Power & Light is pushing for it as Florida's biggest utility it has 5.5 million customers, about 65 percent of the state. Once we realize the large emitters are large emitters because theyre providing service of great magnitude, and we look at it and we see its so efficient, we have our answer, Patino-Echeverri said. invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. Pairing solar energy centers with battery storage, including the worlds largest battery in Manatee County. nears the finish line on new track at Freedom Field, Amazon's Daisy Jones & the Six Is the Latest in a Long Line of Embarrassing Portraits of Musical Genius. FPL's financials remain strong. The consultants pitched and supported tactics designed toembarrassindividualreporters who they believed had crossed their client's interests. Commissioners said it was the highest response rate they had received on any issue and concluded that no immediate changes to net metering needed to be made. A spokesperson for FPL said it stopped working with Canopy in late 2021. The sites publisher, Brian Burgess, a former top spokesperson for past Florida governor Rick Scott, also suggested in emails that Matrix should lure prominent Florida journalists to a new site or buy local papers owned by media giant Gannett Company and then lay off most of the clown reporters to inject content into publications without anyone knowing who was pulling the strings. Katie Chiles Ottenweller, Southeast director for Vote Solar, an Atlanta-based advocacy organization, is optimistic but wary given Florida Power & Lights clout in the Florida Legislature and its role in drafting the bill. The company bought an independently owned coal-powered plant in Indiantown in 2016 with the intent to close it, which occurred last summer. Pitts, who left Matrix in December 2020 to start his own firm, Canopy Partners, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. We are consistently one of the cleanest electric utilities in the country, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said. Florida is one of 47 states that allow households and businesses that produce power to sell it back to the grid at a set rate. Former FPL senior executive Armando Pimentel was named as Silagy's replacement. He added that the company would soon challenge the complaint and call for its dismissal. I find this to be horrifying and undemocratic, said Gianna Trocino Bonner, former chief legislative aide for Rodrguez, after reviewing some of the leaked documents. Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. So they opted instead for Mayor Stoddards electoral defeat and changing the makeup of the board, according to a 2018 memo from Dan Newman, a Matrix contractor who was similarly involved in the campaign against Rodrguez. FPL's former consultants orchestrated a financial takeover of a small Tallahassee-based political news site with a conservativebent that allowed the utility's highest executives to weigh in with editorial decisions, the internal Matrix records show. Howard Crystal, an attorney for the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, said that US utilities are allowed monopoly power because they are supposed to expand the public interest. Justin Vandenbroeck, the president of the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association who also owns an Orlando-based solar installation company, said the solar industry consists mostly of independently-owned small businesses. In Perkins telling, he was getting ready to hand over leadership of Matrix in December 2020 when Pitts surprised him by leaving the firm, taking three employees as well as most of Matrixs Florida-based clients with him to launch Canopy. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy Retires in Wake of Matrix Consultant Scandal Alex DeLuca January 25, 2023 11:52AM FPL CEO Eric Silagy (left) speaks with Gov. The ghostcandidate controversy set off a wide-ranging criminal investigation by prosecutors in Miami, whosecured a guilty pleafrom the independent candidate in District 37 andfiled felony charges against Frank Artiles, a former Republican lawmaker accused of bribing the candidate to run. The ongoing clash between Matrixs founder Joe Perkins, 72, and former CEO Jeff Pitts, 51, is exposing the firms decades of extensive influence peddling on behalf of utility clients. "The way I look at it is it's a little earlier than I would have hoped Eric would have wanted to do it.". This story is a collaboration with Floodlight. Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. We'll get them back on Check the FPL Power Tracker for updates on any outages in your area or report one to us. Skeptics of that plan notably included the Office of Public Counsel, thewatchdog group that represents consumers before the Public Service Commission butwas thought to have been more friendly to utility interests after the installation of a longtime industry lobbyist in 2021. While the West County Energy Center ranked 29th on this list for emitting more than 7.3 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide in 2020, equivalent to emissions from nearly 1.6 million passenger cars, FPL is also correct when it says the facilityis among the most efficient power plants in the country. That gave Matrix consultants and FPL executives input on Capitolist stories. 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