florida power and light scandal

She likened it to comparing emissions from a personal car used once a week and a city bus that takes many trips. At the same time, getting to 100% elimination of greenhouse gas emissions for the energy sector is very hard to do with just renewables. For example, in documents obtained by reporters, Silagy had emailed two of his vice presidents to make a state senator's "life a living hell" after proposing a pro-solar bill. FPL has been ensnaredin public scandal over aggressive political tactics that Florida newspapers have laid bare since late last year. 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. The records show that entities controlled by the former Matrix employees, and associated in an internal ledger with FPL, financially backed an intermediary who had arrived in Jacksonville to help set up Fix JEA Now. one of the largest contributors to legislative Florida political campaigns, would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. Adding more rooftop solar is one way to cut down on emissions and make the grid more resilient, Shober said. 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 commission held a workshop, which drew 16,000 messages from solar advocates urging it to leave the net metering program alone. FPL has also said an internal investigation ordered by its board of directors cleared the company's employees of any wrongdoing; it has also refused to provide copies of that investigation. NPR and Floodlight reported the same consulting firm did work in Alabama for that state's dominant energy utility, Alabama Power, and funneled money to news sites there that reported negatively on the utility's critics and regulators. An FPL spokesman, nonetheless, took issue with the Find Energy reportciting concerns over a general legal disclaimer on the website and the use of a misleading statistic of overall emissions rather than the emissions rate. From the beginning, Matrix showed no aversion to unsavory political tactics. 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. For many years and without my knowledge or approval, Pitts abused his power and position to benefit himself and his cronies, Perkins said in a statement. She said the support she got from other teams was 'overwhelming. Katie Chiles Ottenweller, Southeast director for Vote Solar, an Atlanta-based advocacy organization, is optimistic but wary given Florida Power & Lights clout in the Florida Legislature and its role in drafting the bill. 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. 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. Those dark-money groups were controlled by former Matrix employees, the records show. 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. 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. Inat least one case, they had this Times-Union columnist surveilled, according to the secret records. 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. Records from the Florida Senate show that Florida Power & Light drafted the bill, and lobbyist John Holley delivered it to Bradley, R-Fleming Island, and Florida Power & Lights parent company followed up with a $10,000 contribution to her political committee. 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 . The email was forwarded on to Silagy,though there is no indication the company seriously entertained Burgess' idea. "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. He has denied the allegations. 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. And in 2020, Matrix even harnessed the power of the press for itself, when its employees acquired control of The Capitolist, a Tallahassee-based political news site which it used for favorable coverage, leaked records show. A short-lived organization called "Fix JEA Now" registered a web domain in 2017 and began making dramatic claims about the city-owned utility. The negative is the immense amount of megawatts, but its a need for the community. Butone thing the leaked Matrix records make clear isthat more secrets remain on the firm's hard drive. Documents shared by an anonymous source show Silagy directing his team to make life hell for Florida senator Jos Javier Rodrguez. Ron DeSantis, approved FPLs rate hike, raising Floridians monthly bills by over $1.5 billion in the next few years with annual increases through 2025, while increasing FPLs profits. We are committed to being as clean as we can as fast as we can without sacrificing reliability or affordability, McGrath said. We are investing in clean energy because its the right thing to do for our customers. 1 factor to reduce greenhouse gases is the transition from coal to gas. Get the FPL Mobile App. Rodrguez was ousted from office in the next election. 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. 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. to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. Bradley filed the bill in November. Pairing solar energy centers with battery storage, including the worlds largest battery in Manatee County. 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. They work off intimidating. 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. It backed a failed ballot amendment in 2016 that would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. While the West County Energy Center ranked 29th on this list for emitting more than 7.3 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide in 2020, equivalent to emissions from nearly 1.6 million passenger cars, FPL is also correct when it says the facilityis among the most efficient power plants in the country. Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. FPL has already passed the $5.1 million total amount it spent in the 2020 cycle. Artiles has been connected to Florida utilities, including NextEra and its subsidiary Florida Power and Light (FPL), for years. In seeking ways to reduce carbon dioxide pollution particularly to address federal emissions goals that aim to stem the effects of climate change its natural to look at the high-emitting plants to find opportunities for efficiencies, said Dalia Patino-Echeverri, an associate professor at Duke Universitys Nicholas School of the Environment, who studies public policy design for energy systems. An Alabama governor the company worked for was convicted of federal felony corruption charges. 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. He is suing Pitts in Alabama for fraud and conspiracy. FPL argued that it is more cost-effective to build a power plant than to invest in energy-efficiency programs because building codes and energy-efficiency standards in consumer products have improved. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. Florida Power & Light denied any wrongdoing related to political campaigns. 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. Thats not where the story ends, however, or the whole picture. Under the leadership of Eric Silagy, 54, the company has been tied to allegations of campaign finance violations, media manipulation, and the surveillance of critical journalists. And additional reporting since last year has made it clear the leakedMatrix records contain legitimate information. 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. 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. Duke has 2 million customers, followed by TECO with 800,000 . One-tenth of 1percent of the power comes from oil. Matrix consultants had little regard for the professional press. Crist secured a deal to freeze FPL rates in 2005 as Attorney General, and he opposed FPLs $1.3 billion rate increase in 2009, which was then blocked by Crist appointees at the PSC. Those who provoked the utilitys ire suffered a harsh response. Their power over utilities in Florida was challenged by legislation proposed by the Democratic Senator of Florida, Jos Javier Rodrguez, in 2019. The plan ultimately failed, and Stoddard was re-elected. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. Theres no time and its urgent, she said. We need to have the debate, he said. Later that year, Floridianswould narrowly elect Ron DeSantis governor, the utility's preferred governing partner. 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. He added thatcarbon dioxide is emitted from burning natural gas, which isa fossil fuel, andis being created whether theyre scrubbing or storing it.. There were a lot of challenges that we successfully managed," he said. Letsgetstarted. 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). 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. Legislators pass legislation, she said. The proposed legislation could seriously curtail that growth. Perkins and Pitts worked together for more than 25 years, expanding the firm into a national operation with dozens of clients in myriad industries. A Democratic state senator was proposing a law that could cut into Florida Power & Lights (FPL) profits. Newman in his memo also took credit for a Miami Herald story about the allegation. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License by Energy and Policy Institute. 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.. Bradley, who received Florida Power & Lights draft bill, is a first-term senator who is close to Senate leadership and chairs the Community Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Congressional Reapportionment. Three people were federally convicted for their role in the ploy. There are reasons to prefer alternatives that are not fossil-fuel intensive. Headquartered in Montgomery, Matrix has been described there as the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-governmental secret agency. 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. 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. In May 2018, FPL's sprawling utility empire laid claim to both boundaries,reaching a pinnacle of power and influence rare even among the mega-corporations that call Florida home. Its CEO, Mark Crosswhite, stepped down in December. Consultants who control Grow United billed FPL for over $3 million before the entity started moving funds around for the election scheme. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants bypassing FPL and its monopoly on electricity. "And we support organizations who had that mission.". FPL is currently modernizing its plant in Dania Beach, expecting the new gas plant to come online this year, but doesnt anticipate building a new natural gas-powered plant in its 10-year outlook. On the outskirts of Wellington, just before 20-Mile Bend, stands a behemoth of a power plant on a site as big as 166 football fields. 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. That decision catapulted the growth of small-scale solar capacity in the state. 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. Bradley said the bill language emerged after a meeting she had with Holley and other members of the utility industry. The plant ispart of a fleet of new-era power generators often cited by the state's largest utility as jewels in itstransition to modern, clean energy. He argued that customers with rooftop solar are being subsidized by other customers who continue to buy electricity and pay to maintain the power grid. It grew by 57 percent in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 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. FPLs campaign contributions appear to be on pace with the utilitys political giving of over $8.1 million in the 2018 gubernatorial cycle. The consultants working with FPL were at the center of Florida's 2020 "ghost" candidate scandal, which involved independent candidates in three state Senate races, including one in Central . In the remarkably successful years of its ambitious expansionism, secret records show FPL may have also been sowing the seeds of its more uncertain present. Map showing route taken by Matrix LLC to oust Jose Javier Rodriguez from office. He says he told them that he was disappointed, but there was enough work for both of them, based on the good work they had done. 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. The team decided an effort to repeal the ordinance would probably fail. The company says the move was not prompted by recent scandals. A Birmingham mayor who employed Matrix got 15 years for bribery, conspiracy and fraud. 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. 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