PUCO orders probe into whether FirstEnergy broke Ohio law by not disclosing Sam Randazzo contracts - cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Wednesday ordered the expansion of an audit into FirstEnergy Corp. to investigate whether the Akron-based utility broke state law by not disclosing it was paying ex-PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo millions in consulting fees.
However, the PUCO said it won’t move ahead with the investigation for now, so as not to interfere with ongoing federal and state lawsuits regarding Randazzo and the House Bill 6 bribery scandal.
The move marks the first time the PUCO has opened a probe into Randazzo’s relationship with FirstEnergy. The utility admitted in July that it paid Randazzo a $4.3 million bribe to push for changes worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the company. Beyond that, the PUCO stated Wednesday, FirstEnergy paid a total of more than $13.4 million to a company Randazzo controlled.
Ohio law requires regulated utilities to disclose, upon request, any contracts or agreements it has made in relation to a PUCO proceeding.
In an entry approved on Wednesday, the PUCO stated that information discovered during its four ongoing investigations indicate FirstEnergy “failed to disclose an apparent ‘side deal’” with Randazzo in exchange for a group controlled by Randazzo, the Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, dropping its opposition to FirstEnergy’s power pricing plan.
Randazzo, a longtime utilities lawyer, was appointed chair of the PUCO in 2019 by Gov. Mike DeWine, even though opponents notified the governor’s administration about Randazzo’s ties to FirstEnergy.
If the PUCO finds FirstEnergy broke state law, it could charge the company up to $10,000 per violation per day. PUCO spokesman Matt Schilling said in such a situation, it would be up to the commission to determine whether that means FirstEnergy would have to pay $10,000 for each of the two days that it issued responses that didn’t mention Randazzo -- a total of $20,000 -- or whether it could be charged $10,000 per violation for every day since late 2015 -- roughly total $11 million.
FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin, in a statement Wednesday, said the agreement with Randazzo “has already been disclosed by the company” in regulatory filings last year and in a deferred prosecution agreement this year.
The original audit, released in August, concluded that FirstEnergy Corp. should return $6.6 million to ratepayers that was part of more than $24 million in payments flagged by FirstEnergy. The payments were made to groups controlled by prominent Cleveland businessman Tony George, as well as entities associated with Randazzo and ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder.
The PUCO has not yet taken any action on those conclusions. But the commission voted Wednesday to separate the frozen probe into Randazzo from the original audit “so that the remaining issues can be resolved and any dollars due to be refunded may be returned to customers as soon as possible,” as the entry stated.
Householder is facing a federal charge that he used $60 million in FirstEnergy bribe money to push through HB6, which – among other things -- offered a $1 billion-plus bailout to two nuclear power plants owned by a then-subsidiary of FirstEnergy.
Randazzo and Householder have each claimed they have done nothing wrong.
source: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/12/puco-orders-probe-into-whether-firstenergy-broke-ohio-law-by-not-disclosing-sam-randazzo-contracts.html
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