While the utility has contributed over $105,000 to the Florida Democratic Party, neither Crist nor his political committee has reported any political contributions from NextEra or the companys subsidiaries during this or previous cycles. The state senator went on to lose re-election by six votes. FPL has been ensnaredin public scandal over aggressive political tactics that Florida newspapers have laid bare since late last year. The committee donated $25,000 to DeSantis political committee on the next day. NextEra officials say that investigation is close to completion. Yet great amounts of power come at a price. 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. "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. 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. Southern Company and Alabama Power run the state of Alabama, Dunn said. He has denied the allegations. 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. That proposal was forwarded to Silagy at FPL but never came to fruition. The proposed legislation could seriously curtail that growth. 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. The firm later recovered more than a million files, according to Perkins, who said they reveal years of hidden, shadow work in Florida. ", "We've heard (FPL parent company NextEra's) management assurances about internal investigations," the analyst,Angie Storozynski, wrote, but "any legal, political or regulatory inquiry into FPLs conduct would be highly damaging to the stock.". I am concerned that it will result in significant costs here, but I also dont want to destroy the rooftop solar industry in Florida.. The company's owner, Joe Perkins, and its former CEO, Jeff Pitts, parted ways in early 2021, becoming bitter enemies locked in legal battles in courtrooms in Alabama and Jacksonville. FPL consultants also used Broken Promises to boost a spoiler candidate in a 2018 state senate race in Gainesville, FL, according to previous reporting from Miami Herald. Pairing solar energy centers with battery storage, including the worlds largest battery in Manatee County. The company anticipates the panels will be able to generate 11,657 megawatts. The negative is the immense amount of megawatts, but its a need for the community. for Floodlight and Annie Martin for Orlando Sentinel, he CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. Thats not where the story ends, however, or the whole picture. That cost is based on the avoided cost that the utility would have incurred if it were to install a comparable system. He is also suing Perkins, alleging defamation and extortion. Its parent company had initiated an investigation of related media reports there. $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. As such, it would seem the FPL plantsinclusion on the list is unfair. Florida Power & Light is pushing for it as Floridas biggest utility it has 5.5 million customers, about 65 percent of the state. 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.. In May 2018, FPL's sprawling. Two decades ago, the company was using more than40 million barrels of oil, the most of any electric utility, McGrath said. 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. But the inclusion raises a complex but important question as 21st-century energy policy grapples with ways to further reduce carbon emissions as a climate-change doomsday clock continues to tick-tock. McClure conceded the bill is not baked.. Matrix was never accused of wrongdoing. Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. All rights reserved. Records show FPL trusted Matrix operatives with millions, including giving $14m to a single Matrix-run nonprofit in 2018 alone. Once he left, Pitts said Perkins smeared him to clients in an attempt to extort millions. One of Matrixs oldest clients is Alabama Power, which employed Perkins personal consulting firm as early as 1999. 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. Pitts at the time forwarded a draft of the script to two FPL executives. The fliers warned residents not to let the Environmental Protection Agency test their soil for the presence of contaminants left by a coal plant. Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. He is a former federal prosecutor with experience in public corruption cases.. Its the right thing to do for our state.. Florida Power & Light is the largest electric utility in the state, serving more than 11 million people across vast swaths of Florida. After more than a decade leading Florida Power & Light (FPL), the state's largest power company, Eric Silagy is retiring. Its CEO, Mark Crosswhite, stepped down in December. Rooftop solar, while critical to fighting climate change, is a threat to the traditional utility business model. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: FPL CEO Eric Silagy to retire; Armando Pimentel rejoins company, FPL seeks to raise monthly power bills for residental customers by 10%, FPL CEO Eric Silagy to retire; Armando Pimentel rejoins company, Chicago Mayor Lightfoot ousted; Vallas, Johnson in runoff, King asks Duke and Duchess of Sussex to move out of Frogmore so Prince Andrew can move in, Biden Mocks Marjorie Taylor Greene With 1 Simple Hand Gesture, A Nebraska high-school cheerleader competed on her own after the rest of her squad quit. Burgess said he never pitched nor solicited feedback from FPL executives on any story or business venture, and FPL spokesperson Chris McGrath said acquiring a news organization would not have made sense as a business deal for FPL. 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. Two days later, Florida Division of Elections records show, Florida Power & Lights parent company, NextEra Energy, gave $10,000 to Bradleys political committee, Women Building the Future. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. 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. TALLAHASSEE Rooftop solar power generation in Florida is still a nascent industry, but Florida Power & Light, the nations largest power company, is pushing to hamstring it by writing and hand-delivering legislation the company asked state lawmakers to introduce, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald and Floodlight. But Dennis, in an interview last year, recalled receiving a job offer with remarkable similarities to the one outlined in the internal Matrix documents. From a public perception, maybe there is value in highlighting where our emissions come from, Patino-Echeverri said. 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. [] NextAmid Connections to Ongoing Election Scandals, NextEra Pours Millions into Floridas 2022 []. This particular power plant ranked in the top third,alongwithcoal-powered plants, in thelist of 100 power plants across the country that belched out the most carbon dioxide in 2020, according to thereport by Find Energy. It grew by 57 percent in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. "We could even do it stealthily so we could inject content into all those publications and nobody has to know who's actually pulling the strings," he wrote. 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. 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. Their power over utilities in Florida was challenged by legislation proposed by the Democratic Senator of Florida, Jos Javier Rodrguez, in 2019. While some of the actions taken by FPL tick the boxes to reduce emissions, more can be done, Shober said. 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. He said what he found was deeply disturbing. influencing local mayoral and county commission elections, a Miami Herald story about the allegation, graphic showing acquisition flow of The Capitolist, Graphic showing number of stops taken by Matrix private planes. They proposed offering a job to Garrett Dennis, a member of the Jacksonville City Council who had been outspoken against selling JEA. If this bill passes as it is, it has the potential to send Florida back to 2013, as if the advances of the last 10 years didnt happen, Vandenbroeck said. But utility experts have testified to the Florida Public Service Commission that rooftop solar in the state could grow at a rate of 39 percent a year until 2025 if Floridas current net metering system is left in place. You gotta bow down and kiss the ring.. "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. 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. In each of those cases, Matrix was working against politicians or policies fighting to curb the climate crisis by encouraging renewable power. The company says the move was not prompted by recent scandals. Just in December, the Public Service Commission approved a request from FPL to recover costs from customers due to a 10% increase in natural gas prices. 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. 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. Heffley suggested that he could send it via email today or we will be at the Capitol next week., Holley declined to provide an electronic version and offered to drop it off in person the following week. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. Florida Power & Light spokesperson Chris McGrath said the company doesnt oppose net metering but wants to see the current law revised. At the start of Monday's earnings call, Ketchum, the chief executive officer of NextEra, addressed media reports and the federal election grievance head-on. 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. FPL has complained bitterly about the news coverage of the leaked records, and there is little indication its parent company, NextEra, is reflective about what the records have to say about the involvement of its largest subsidiaryandits highest-level executives. FPL | Contact Us We're here to help Please log in so we can help you faster. "We're not making a connection" between the reports and Silagy's retirement, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on the earnings call. A dark money group associated with Matrix LLC mailed attack ads against South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard to area residents. The consultants pitched and supported tactics designed toembarrassindividualreporters who they believed had crossed their client's interests. 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. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. 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. 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. Join the New Times community and help support Flight data shows Matrixs planes made more than 130 flights to five states in 2020 alone, frequently crisscrossing the south-eastern US but also traveling as far west as New Mexico. Matrix also exerted political influence through the press, with its operatives acquiring control of a Tallahassee-based politics news site, The Capitolist. President and CEO of Florida Power & Light Eric Silagy speaks to the media after FPL imploded its last Florida . Perkins has alleged in a lawsuit that Pitts led a rogue group of Matrix employees who undertook work on FPL's behalf that he only learned about after Pitts departed work worth millions in fees. As for Silagy's departure, Ketchum said, "It's a little earlier than Eric would've wanted to do it.". Added Patino-Echeverri: The No. But FPL was fixated on JEA; buying it would lock Florida's entire East Coast into FPL's service territory, another bold expansion of FPL's power. I just want to reach out and see if I could get an electronic copy of the net metering bill so I can put it into drafting.. In all, the centerproduces enough electricity for 750,000 homes and businesses. It is a regulated monopoly which means that the. At the same time, getting to 100% elimination of greenhouse gas emissions for the energy sector is very hard to do with just renewables. Header Image Credit: YouTube, 10 Tampa Bay. Along with a private investigator, the group delved into Stoddards past for episodes to weaponize against him, such as a South Miami commissioners claim on Facebook that Stoddard had forcibly kissed her. She likened it to comparing emissions from a personal car used once a week and a city bus that takes many trips. 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. F lorida Power & Light is an investor owned company. Going through those tens of thousands ofrecords, he said, alerted him to the extent of work Pitts performed without his knowledge. Out of this, the FPL executive told Burgess, according to the Herald. Three people were federally convicted for their role in the ploy. Media scrutiny of the company's political giving began shortly after the 2020 election, when a trio of spoiler candidates tipped close state senate races toward candidates considered friendly to Florida Power & Light. The bill also allows utilities to charge rooftop solar customers more, by adding in facility charges, grid access fees and minimum monthly payments. Methane is 25 times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA. "When you think about all the challenges that he had to overcome, with the hurricanes and high natural gas prices and inflation and supply chain and, you know, the media allegations and all those things, I think it took a toll on Eric that year," Ketchum said during a question-and-answer session on the call. In 2015, Matrix distributed fliers for a suspicious charity in a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Birmingham. A local law firm and the company that owned the coal plant used the charity to pay the representative. 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. This is a tired tactic that utilities have used to maintain their monopoly grip on electricity markets, said Will Giese, southeast regional director for the Solar Energy Industries Association. FPL has echoed Pitts' allegations and called into question the veracity of some of the leaked records, although it has repeatedly refused to provide evidence the documents have been altered in any way. Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Utility Front Group Advertisement Tracker, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, Gas utilities push RNG and hydrogen to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, AGA uses millions of dollars from utility customers to promote a fossil fuel agenda, Internal documents detail how gas utilities greenwash RNG and hydrogen, Front groups and trade associations funded by gas utilities fight electrification policies, List of deceptive RNG and hydrogen projects, FirstEnergy CEO Steven Strah emailed about under the radar House Bill 6 provision that cost Ohio ratepayers millions of dollars. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reported this story with Mario Ariza of Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. But wherever the pair went, indictments often followed. About a decade ago, FPL made the fateful decision to hire Matrix LLC, an Alabama-based political consulting firm notorious in its home state but with little public profile in Florida. 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.. The CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. Quick Links Start, Stop, Move Find My Account Number Pay Online Support Categories Billing & Payments My Account Start, Stop, Move Programs Business Customer Save Money & Energy Power Related Concerns Using FPL.com General Support Virtual Chat Most Common Links Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. However, those policies are coming under fire as utilities become. 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. While the transition to natural gas has reduced emissions that would otherwise come from oil or gas, and installing utility-scale solar is an important step, getting to zero emissions takes a lot more than that, she said. Florida now has the second-largest solar workforce in the country about 11,000 direct jobs and 31,000 indirect ones, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. It grew by 57 percent in 2020, DeSantis new election crimes office: 52 positions and unprecedented authority. Those dark-money groups were controlled by former Matrix employees, the records show. But Florida Power & Light is arguing rooftop solar could cost Florida utilities about $700 million between 2019 and 2025, according to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. 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. The company bought an independently owned coal-powered plant in Indiantown in 2016 with the intent to close it, which occurred last summer. 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. Ricardo Rossello, governor of Puerto Rico, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, as power was being restored to a neighborhood in February 2018, five months after Hurricane Irma struck the area. Florida Power & Light has a monopoly on power in Florida. Alabama Power still hasnt had a rate case. 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. Artiles pleaded not guilty. Political editor Emily L. Mahoney will send you a rundown on local, state and national politics coverage every Thursday. 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. Butone thing the leaked Matrix records make clear isthat more secrets remain on the firm's hard drive. According to FPL, the plant also has the best available and most advanced emission-control equipment.. small-scale solar capacity in the state. Customers at the time were paying some of the highest rates for electricity in the south-east. I want you to make his life a living hell seriously, FPLs CEO Eric Silagy wrote in a 2019 email to two of his vice-presidents about state Senator Jos Javier Rodrguez, who proposed the legislation. [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. He added thatcarbon dioxide is emitted from burning natural gas, which isa fossil fuel, andis being created whether theyre scrubbing or storing it.. Perkins has repeatedly denied leaking records, though he has verified the authenticity of numerous records underlying recent stories by the Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. With Gulf Power in hand, FPL would serve more than 12 million customers more than half the population of the third largest state in the country. "It's a 24-hour day job. Customer Support. The money was allegedly funneled through a network of tax-exempt nonprofits that obscured its origin. Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images Hours later, a story like the one the executive pitched appeared on The Capitolist. The records also demonstrate that secrecy is no substitute for sophistication or savvy: Some of Matrix's tricks did little to improve FPL's business prospects and, in fact, have now served to humiliate the utility like Silagy's use of a pseudonym email account belonging to a fictitious "Theodore Hayes" to communicate with Matrix employees (a tactic detailed in the leaked Matrix records that both FPL and Silagy himself confirmed took place). Newman in his memo also took credit for a Miami Herald story about the allegation. The utility company also contributes to many Democrats and to the Florida Democratic Party. In Florida, Matrixs work touched almost every level of politics, from influencing local mayoral and county commission elections to combating attempts to reshape the state constitution. A Birmingham mayor who employed Matrix got 15 years for bribery, conspiracy and fraud. Would have incurred if it were to install a comparable system change, is threat! Grew by 57 percent in 2020, DeSantis new Election crimes office: 52 and... At trapping heat than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA neighborhood in North.... It as Floridas biggest utility it has 5.5 million customers, about 65 percent of the script to FPL... Occurred last summer business model cost that the the pair went, indictments often followed FPL on... Was working against politicians or policies fighting to curb the climate crisis by encouraging renewable Power a personal used! A network of tax-exempt nonprofits that obscured its origin the plant also has the best available most. Tens of thousands ofrecords, he CEO of the highest rates for electricity in state! Trusted Matrix operatives with millions, including giving $ 14m to a single Matrix-run in! Not prompted by recent Scandals pair went, indictments often followed bus that takes many trips a predominantly neighborhood! Be done, Shober said ] NextAmid Connections to Ongoing Election Scandals, nextera millions! 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