FirstEnergy had big stake in tainted nuclear plant bailout

CLEVELAND (AP) — FirstEnergy Corp. was once blamed for its part in triggering North America's largest blackout nearly 20 years ago. Now, the multistate power company is again facing intense scrutiny — this time for its role in an alleged $60 million bribery scheme that has ensnared one of Ohio’s most powerful politicians.

While FirstEnergy and its executives have denied wrongdoing and have not been criminally charged, federal investigators say the company secretly funneled millions to secure a $1 billion legislative bailout for two unprofitable Ohio nuclear plants then operated by an independently controlled subsidiary called FirstEnergy Solutions.

Officials from the Akron-based corporation, including CEO Chuck Jones, have long insisted FirstEnergy Corp. had no financial stake in rescuing the plants because they were operated FirstEnergy Solutions. Yet nearly all of the money used to fund the scheme, authorities said, came from the corporation itself.

The bailout bill, critics say, helped smooth the way for FirstEnergy to officially shift ownership of the nuclear plants and two coal-burning power plants to its creditors in federal bankruptcy court in February. Shedding the plants allowed the corporation to focus on its profitable business of powering 6 million customers in Ohio and other states.

Ashley Brown, executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a member of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from 1983 to 1993, said the HB6 bailout legislation clearly benefited FirstEnergy Corp.

“I think there’s no question that FirstEnergy was acting in its own self-interest,” Brown said. “Ordinarily, there's nothing particularly wrong with that. But HB6 skewed everything.”

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