(The Center Square) – FirstEnergy’s Ohio utilities owes customers nearly $180 million for its part in the state’s largest bribery scandal in history.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ruled the energy company’s utilities – Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., Ohio Edison and Toledo Edison – violated the law, commission regulations and commission orders surrounding the passage of House Bill 6.
In a pair of orders, the utilities must pay a total of $250.7 million in restitution and civil penalties.
“The commission has remained steadfast in ensuring that we have followed the facts wherever they may lead,” Chairwoman Jenifer French said in a statement. “Our hope is the events underlying these proceedings will remain a cautionary lesson of accountability and honesty in utility regulatory matters.”
The ruling said the utilities failed to use a rate hike collected from 2017-19 to modernize distribution grids, but instead used the money to subsidize its unregulated generation affiliate.
The utilities must return $179.99 million to customers over three billing cycles.
The commission also said FirstEnergy used nearly $60 million to lobby for the passage of House Bill 6, the state’s nuclear energy bailout.
The utilities also have to pay a $21.78 million civil penalty for entering into a consulting agreement in 2013 and another $18.93 million for failing to show a side agreement with Industrial Energy Users during a 2015 commission hearing.
“Ohioans expect and deserve fair utility bills and utility companies that follow the law,” said Maureen Wills, agency director of the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. “Today’s PUCO order requiring fines, restitution and refunds is an important milestone in fixing the harms FirstEnergy caused.”
To push HB6, FirstEnergy funneled millions to former House Speaker Larry Householder and other Republican Party leaders and political officials.
FirstEnergy agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in their investigation, admitting it conspired with public officials, others and entities to pay millions of dollars to public officials in exchange for specific official action to help FirstEnergy.
Householder, along with four coconspirators, was charged in 2020. Also charged were Borges, Clark, the Oxley Group cofounder Juan Cespedes and strategist John Longstreth.
Householder is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison.
