Another federal agency has financially penalized FirstEnergy Corp. for its involvement in a 2019 bribery scandal.
In a Dec. 15 agreement, FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $3.86 million fine to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for not being up front with FERC auditors, between 2015 and the subsequent 2019 scandal, about almost $60 million the company funneled through a non-profit corporation to former Ohio House Speaker Larry householder (R) and four political allies.
FirstEnergy was also not up front with FERC auditors about other money going to the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Sam Randazzo, who aided FirstEnergy in these efforts, according to the agreement.
FERC also now requires FirstEnergy to file annual reports for the next two years on efforts to improve compliance with future commission audits.
The $60 million went to Householder and his allies — three lobbyists and a campaign manager — through the non-profit Generation Now. The plan was to get Householder elected as speaker of the Ohio state House of Representatives, where he could pass a bill to provide $150 million in annual subsidies, at ratepayers’ expense, to two financially struggling Ohio reactors — Davis-Besse and Perry.
A FirstEnergy subsidiary owned the reactors at the time. The subsidiary has since gone bankrupt, split from FirstEnergy and is now an independent company called Energy Harbor.
In 2020, the FBI arrested Householder, three lobbyists and a former campaign chairman on money laundering charges. Householder and one lobbyist are fighting the charges. Two of the five have pleaded guilty. One lobbyist, Neil Clark, killed himself in early 2021.
No one at FirstEnergy has been criminally charged in this matter.
As part of a separate settlement agreement with the state and federal government, FirstEnergy Corp. stipulated it paid $60 million to bribe Householder and the other four. The company agreed to pay a $230 million fine as part of this settlement and to cooperate fully with the feds and state on all follow-up matters.
