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. The solar industry disagrees, pointing to research that shows rooftop solar penetration is low enough in most states that the effects of distributed solar on retail electricity prices will likely remain negligible for the foreseeable future.. He was previously the chief financial officer for NextEra Energy and FPL and led NextEra Energy Resources, the parent company's renewable resources arm, for eight years. "Based on information in our possession, we believe that FPL would not be found liable for any of the Florida Campaign finance law violations as alleged in the media articles," Ketchum said. As a result of the current system, my constituents are being forced to subsidize the decisions of neighbors in other counties who are in a position to be able to put these expensive systems on their homes, Bradley said. She also was a corporate operative. Consultants who control Grow United billed FPL for over $3 million before the entity started moving funds around for the election scheme. However, those policies are coming under fire as utilities become increasingly concerned about how the growth of distributed solar energy affects their bottom line. Once he left, Pitts said Perkins smeared him to clients in an attempt to extort millions. Hours later, a story like the one the executive pitched appeared on The Capitolist. Florida Power & Light denied any wrongdoing related to political campaigns. Perkins and Pitts worked together for more than 25 years, expanding the firm into a national operation with dozens of clients in myriad industries. Those who provoked the utilitys ire suffered a harsh response. 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. Upon realizing the extent of Pittss shadow operations and abuses of power, we filed our lawsuit against Pitts and those few rogue employees.. And additional reporting since last year has made it clear the leakedMatrix records contain legitimate information. In California, regulators plan to increase fees on rooftop solar customers. 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. But wherever the pair went, indictments often followed. In 2013, Terry Dunn, a Republican electricity regulator at Alabamas Public Service Commission made moves to hold formal hearings on how customers energy bills were calculated something that hadnt happened in three decades. 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. Artiles has been connected to Florida utilities, including NextEra and its subsidiary Florida Power and Light (FPL), for years. Soon, Dunn faced attacks in the rightwing press and online, while Matrix-affiliated groups some of which received millions from a non-profit run by a contractor for Alabama Power filed a motion to intervene in the proceedings. DeSantis, who is attempting to build a populist profile ahead of a presidential run in 2024,has turned on FPL, having used his veto pen earlier this year to kill one of the utility's highest legislative priorities a controversial bill that would have limited the growth of the residential rooftop solar industryin Florida. Following up right after Ketchum's comments, Silagy said that his predecessors had held their roles for about a decade each, and that gearing up for another multi-year rate case with state regulators would mean he would have to stay until 2026. Theyve got the lobbying power, and weve got the people power.. Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. The company says the move was not prompted by recent scandals. Over the course of DeSantis tenure, he used that veto power once to block an anti-rooftop solar bill written by FPL. The West County Energy Centeruses three combined-cycle generating units thatburnnatural gas in a turbine much like a jet engine and in turn usesthat exhaust to make a second power source of steam. 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. Here is why and how much. Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Florida Power & Light has a monopoly on power in Florida. Im not afraid if the conclusion is its not the time to do this. Jeff Weiner for the Orlando Sentinel contributed reporting, A moral imperative: how southern ministers are trying to change minds about the climate crisis, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Florida Power & Light argues that arrangement is unfair to customers who dont generate their own power but continue to pay for the costs of maintaining the grid that rooftop solar customers also use. And a former regional administrator for the EPA who did business with Pitts pleaded guilty to violating state ethics law multiple times. More recently, the company hired an outside law firm to look more broadly at the company's actions. 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. A dark money group associated with Matrix LLC mailed attack ads against South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard to area residents. 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. The Find Energy report relied on data that is submitted by power companies to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The companies that are doing the right thing still have those kinds of plants in their portfolio, specifically coal, but theyre working toward other alternatives, Hope said. FPLs campaign contributions appear to be on pace with the utilitys political giving of over $8.1 million in the 2018 gubernatorial cycle. That growth has the utilities, and legislators, worried. Pimentel will rejoin the company on Feb. 15 and work with Silagy until his departure. The ghostcandidate controversy set off a wide-ranging criminal investigation by prosecutors in Miami, whosecured a guilty pleafrom the independent candidate in District 37 andfiled felony charges against Frank Artiles, a former Republican lawmaker accused of bribing the candidate to run. There was no question the company would be the leading bidder almost by default. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. Please provide us with the Personal Identification Number (PIN) that you were given for a co-browse session with our representative. More:FPL seeks to raise monthly power bills for residental customers by 10%. Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Promote the @&;$&!!! We need to have the debate, he said. 11:52AM. Florida Power & Light has pushed back against efforts to bring solar panels to the Sunshine State, while runoff from the sugar industry is a major source of water pollution in Florida.. He added that the company would soon challenge the complaint and call for its dismissal. FPL's financials remain strong. Emails show that Bradleys staff followed up with Florida Power & Light after that discussion. Perkins and Pitts sued each other, with Pitts claiming his former mentor had never followed through on handing over the company despite years of discussions. Matrix also exerted political influence through the press, with its operatives acquiring control of a Tallahassee-based politics news site, The Capitolist. Florida Power and Light is launching a webpage dedicated to attacking the Miami Herald specifically Tallahassee bureau chief Mary Ellen Klas for its "biased" reporting on proposed . ABC News cut ties with the producer immediately following that report. 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. That proposal was forwarded to Silagy at FPL but never came to fruition. It's easy to pay your bill, view your energy usage, manage your account and more. Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School said the whole purpose of firms like Matrix is to conceal that its the utility doing this. 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. The issue extends to several states. FPL has already passed the $5.1 million total amount it spent in the 2020 cycle. As you may know, Gera is NextEra Energys Vice President and Chief Litigation Officer. Leaked records in the possession of that consulting firm show that Matrix employees worked behind the scenes in cities across Florida for years to advance FPL's interests, sometimes going to extreme lengths to manipulate the political process in the utility's favor. Three people were federally convicted for their role in the ploy. [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. Discover Your Options Lights out? Four other FPL natural gas plants also made the list, but are still ranked among the most efficient in terms of emissions per megawatt hour of energy produced. She said the support she got from other teams was 'overwhelming. In each of those cases, Matrix was working against politicians or policies fighting to curb the climate crisis by encouraging renewable power. Ricardo Rossello,. Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. So it's particularly jarring to have seen the facility land on a list of pollutingelectric plants that included plenty of old-school coal power plants. With two months until voters elect the next Florida Governor, NextEra Energy and its subsidiaries, Florida Power & Light and Florida City Gas, have poured nearly $6 million into state level campaign funds and political committees. Their power over utilities in Florida was challenged by legislation proposed by the Democratic Senator of Florida, Jos Javier Rodrguez, in 2019. 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. 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. Run by a former Rick Scott spokesman, Brian Burgess, The Capitolist often focused criticism not on powerful industry players or politicians but on individual journalists at publications like the Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and Times-Union that had crossed the interests of one of the state's large corporations, like FPL. It ranks third among states for installed solar capacity, although much of that is large-scale, utility-owned solar. In one case, at the suggestion of Silagy, FPL's CEO, Burgess included in a newsletter a photoshopped image of the Herald's Tallahassee bureau chief, Mary Ellen Klas, as a pauper begging for money. Records show FPL trusted Matrix operatives with millions, including giving $14m to a single Matrix-run nonprofit in 2018 alone. This plant has been part of the solution.. Alissa Jean Schafer is a research and communications specialist at the Energy and Policy Institute. independent local journalism in Miami. At the start of the Monday earnings call, Ketchum, the NextEra chief executive, directly addressed the media reports and federal election complaint. "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. Going through those tens of thousands ofrecords, he said, alerted him to the extent of work Pitts performed without his knowledge. He said what he found was deeply disturbing. them with making Rodrguez's life "a living hell.". 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. Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Florida Power & Light customers who paid $101.70 last year for a typical monthly bill of 1,000 . With these facilities, FPL replaced inefficient 20th-century coal plants and weaned itself off foreign imported oil. 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. 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. Theres no time and its urgent, she said. To date, no FPL employees have been charged with any crimes. What people may not realize is that public opinion is very much in our favor, said Bryan Jacob of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. 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. DeSantis received $25,000 from a dark money non-profit funded by FPL in the 2018 election cycle, according to reporting from the Miami Herald. 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. Knowing this may inspire consumers to seek out energy-efficient solutions in their own homes like LED lighting, efficient air conditioners or improving insulation and be more aware of the electricity they use, how they use it and perhaps use less. As for Silagy's departure, Ketchum said, "It's a little earlier than Eric would've wanted to do it.". McGrath added that the companys move toward cleaner energy sources is a march, not a sprint.. 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. The CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. Bradley filed the bill in November. 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. And the job was to come with one key hitch: To accept it, Dennis would have to leave his council position. Perkins claims he only became aware of this work after he encountered what appeared to be a damaged hard drive in Pitts' former office and hired an IT team to extract the remains. That is a fairly energy-intensive process in and of itself. In 2018, Perkins Communications received at least $1.49m from Alabama Power, a leaked contract shows. Follow him onTwitter@NateMonroeTU. Adding more rooftop solar is one way to cut down on emissions and make the grid more resilient, Shober said. One person affiliated with Grow United is Abbie MacIver, who formerly worked for Energy Fairness, a group that encourages policymakers to consider the cost of energy choices, as well as their benefits. Last year, McClure sent a letter to state regulators at the Florida Public Service Commission citing the result and urging it to update its net-metering rule. Newman in his memo also took credit for a Miami Herald story about the allegation. Drop a line at hmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter @mannahhorse. FPL | Contact Us We're here to help Please log in so we can help you faster. . We are investing in clean energy because its the right thing to do for our customers. That decision catapulted the growth of small-scale solar capacity in the state. 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. The proposed bill would allow landlords to sell cheap solar panels to their tenants. That effort culminated with a Matrix employee signing an option agreement to purchase a controlling stake in The Capitolist in September 2019, the records show. "We're not making a connection" between the reports and Silagy's retirement, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on the earnings call. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. 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. F lorida Power & Light is an investor owned company. Join the New Times community and help support "JEA is broken," the group boasted on its website, where it posted Times-Union coverage of the utility's involvement in an over-budget, behind-schedule nuclear project in Georgia. 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. 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. They proposed offering a job to Garrett Dennis, a member of the Jacksonville City Council who had been outspoken against selling JEA. 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. Customers who are already using rooftop solar power before 2023 would be grandfathered in and keep their previous compensation rates for 10 years. Still,plants with high emissions are going to draw attention in the overall effort to cut down ongreenhouse gas, experts say. I am concerned that it will result in significant costs here, but I also dont want to destroy the rooftop solar industry in Florida.. You need this large power plant.. They are supposed to be closely regulated, but their profits and unchecked political spending makes them some of the most powerful entities in a state. The commission held a workshop, which drew 16,000 messages from solar advocates urging it to leave the net metering program alone. "And we support organizations who had that mission.". FPL has been ensnaredin public scandal over aggressive political tactics that Florida newspapers have laid bare since late last year. FPL bristled at the inclusion of its power plantson the list bythe website Find Energy, which aggregates and analyzes finalized government data on electricity companies. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. Big power companies operate as monopolies with captive customers in much of the south-east US. 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. He is also suing Perkins, alleging defamation and extortion. Do you need this bus to transport this many people, and do you need it to be this large? she asked hypothetically. The warm light races across a 600-mile expanse of land and coast before finally brightening the Perdido River in Escambia County on Florida's western border. Today, FPL said, two-thirds of its power comes from natural gas, followed by nearly 20% nuclear, 4% solar and almost 3% coal, which comes from a plant NextEra partially owns out of state. 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. And FPL is taking other public-relations hits that make the once-unstoppable company suddenly look more exposed:Earlier this month, for example,FPL uncharacteristically backed off a winter-hardeningproposal that critics alleged could have led to costly customer charges. DeSantis is running against former Republican Governor and current Democratic nominee Charlie Crist, who has been a vocal critic of FPL throughout his political career. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. The Florida Panhandle is in revolt over bills that some FPL customers claim are double or triple what they were paying under Southern Company's stewardship of Gulf Power. Legislators pass legislation, she 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. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and electricity production accounts for 25% of the greenhouse gases emitted in the United States in 2019. They dont make money off of the solar power generated from rooftops. At least its not coal., The intent of the report was to highlight coal and the negative of coal and offer information that may be pertinent to those who live near the plants, Hope said. 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 state board recently rebuffed a request from several Democratic lawmakers for an audit of Florida Power & Light's finances, which the representatives sought following reports linking the. 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. one of the largest contributors to legislative Florida political campaigns, would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. Here is why and how much, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. So Florida Power & Light did something about it. [Public records from the Florida Senate], Hillsborough school board talks of delay as key vote nears on boundary plan, Closed New Tampa golf course stirs another round of bickering, Pasco park restaurant plans must wait for study of nearby burial mound, Heres the story behind Parkesdale Markets famous Plant City strawberry shortcakes, McCarthy gives Carlson access to 1/6 footage, raising alarms, Toni Says: Taking Medicare advice from your friends can be costly, Florida schools still struggle with late buses, Florida official unsure if Vertol will still handle migrant relocation program, Murder trial of former FSU receiver Travis Rudolph set to begin Friday, Energetic Dave Canales excited about new Bucs offense, calling plays and QB Kyle Trask. Came to fruition entity started moving funds around for the Palm Beach.... Are investing in clean Energy because its the right thing to do this and specialist! Newspapers have laid bare since late last year come with one key hitch: to accept,. 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