The issue extends to several states. That same year, a consultant told the Jacksonville City Council that taking JEA privatewould "likelyrepresent the largest and most complex" transaction of its kind in the United States. Companies do not pass legislation. 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. Florida Power & Light is pushing for it as Floridas biggest utility it has 5.5 million customers, about 65 percent of the state. McGrath added that the companys move toward cleaner energy sources is a march, not a sprint.. Join the New Times community and help support 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 . While some of the actions taken by FPL tick the boxes to reduce emissions, more can be done, Shober said. "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. The Governor appoints members to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), the regulatory body responsible for overseeing utilities and determining their profitability, making influence over the Governors office critical to NextEras shareholders. Its CEO, Mark Crosswhite, stepped down in December. Many of the documents have since been verified by additional reporting, public records or Perkins himself. On Oct. 8, Bradleys legislative aide Katie Heffley emailed Holley with the subject line: Net Metering Bill., Good afternoon, Hope youre doing well, she said. The financial entanglement between FPL and The Capitolist dated back to 2018, records leaked to the Miami Herald show, when an FPL vice president suggested the website publish a critical piece on DeSantis' Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. The funds supported a total of five spoiler candidates in state senate and county commission races in 2018 and 2020, as well as efforts to foil a ballot initiative that would have deregulated Florida's energy market. But Shober saida missed opportunity is not factoring in methane emissions associated with the leaking of natural gas, from the production of the fuel to its use. In all races, the Republican won the election. Ive also.ccd Gera Peoples on this note. 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. Landlords would be able to. F lorida Power & Light is an investor owned company. 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. Map showing route taken by Matrix LLC to oust Jose Javier Rodriguez from office. She also was a corporate operative. 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. 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. "JEA is broken," the group boasted on its website, where it posted Times-Union coverage of the utility's involvement in an over-budget, behind-schedule nuclear project in Georgia. The tactics worked. Under Floridas current arrangement, homes and businesses that generate less than 2 megawatts of solar power can sell the excess back to their utility in exchange for a bill credit of 11 cents per kWh. I am concerned that it will result in significant costs here, but I also dont want to destroy the rooftop solar industry in Florida.. Meanwhile, Matrix-led non-profits funded a blizzard of ads against Stoddard, accusing him of using public money for vendettas and placing him alongside infamous sex offenders Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. Can I bring it to you all later today? he wrote. 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. Leaked records in the possession of that consulting firm show that Matrix employees worked behind the scenes in cities across Florida for years to advance FPL's interests, sometimes going to extreme lengths to manipulate the political process in the utility's favor. We're advancing solar energy in Florida and you can too with our solar programs. According to reporting by the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Power & Light executives have been tied to a series of dark-money nonprofits, one of which figures prominently in the Miami-Dade state attorneys investigation into a scandal involving a ghost Senate candidate. Big power companies operate as monopolies with captive customers in much of the south-east US. Matrix grew so large that by 2015 it was operating several private aircraft to whisk Pitts and Perkins to client meetings. The Matrix saga illustrates the political obstacles policymakers and experts face as they attempt to cut climate pollution from the power sector, one of the biggest greenhouse gas contributors in the US. The companies that are doing the right thing still have those kinds of plants in their portfolio, specifically coal, but theyre working toward other alternatives, Hope said. In 2015, Matrix distributed fliers for a suspicious charity in a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Birmingham. View MapReport Outage About FPL Company News Careers Environment Community Donate to Care To Share Rates and Your Bill We are consistently one of the cleanest electric utilities in the country, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said. Net metering is a popular program that gives people the right to choose the energy that works for them, provides benefits to all ratepayers and creates thousands of energy jobs across Florida.. And for that reason money spent in the present is almost always justified by the potential future: An election cycle might cost an investor-owned utility millions to meaningfully influence, but failing to do so could cost billions later. Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images 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. Matrixs influence was felt on matters small and large, from Stoddards city of less than 12,000 to statewide fights over the Florida constitution. He is suing Pitts in Alabama for fraud and conspiracy. The string of controversy spans nearly the entire Florida Peninsula already an impressive trail of dirty tricks. They work off intimidating. And then apparently, somewhere along the way, Jeff and Joe got sideways, Silagy said. The solar industry companies that make, sell, install, lease and maintain rooftop solar equipment is fighting back fiercely, suggesting that the bill will devastate its business. Meanwhile, groups aligned with the utility falsely tied Dunn to the Obama administrations efforts to reduce the use of coal. Florida Power & Light customers who paid $101.70 last year for a typical monthly bill of 1,000 . An organization that acts like a mafia should be treated like one, Stoddard said.In a statement, Newman acknowledged managing the campaign against Stoddard and hiring a private investigator to look into the former mayors personal life. While the report contemplates the impact of fracking and transporting natural gas, it is not quantified. McClure conceded the bill is not baked.. The list consists of 83 coal-powered plants, 16 natural gas plants and one plant that uses petroleum coke as its primary fuel type. The company conducted an internal investigation and "found no evidence of any issues at all, any illegality or any wrongdoing on the part of FPL or any of its employees. 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. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. Perkins called Matrixs work for the utility confidential. Customers at the time were paying some of the highest rates for electricity in the south-east. 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. Legislators pass legislation, she said. The charity was a front established by a state representative. That is your choice, but rest assured, we will hold you accountable if that continues to happen. 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. Pitts, who left Matrix in December 2020 to start his own firm, Canopy Partners, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. 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. 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. Ten days later, Heffley wrote Holley again. Terry Dunn wanted to examine why Alabama Power charged some of the highest rates in the country. Reporting, primarily by the Orlando Sentinel, showed spoiler candidates in three state Senate races in 2020 were propped up by at least a half-million dollars from dark-money groups in an effort to help damage the Democrats in those races and help Republicans control the chamber. 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. Letsgetstarted. Customers who are already using rooftop solar power before 2023 would be grandfathered in and keep their previous compensation rates for 10 years. Under the scheme, a candidate with no political background was on the ballot as a no-party option in an effort to confuse voters and dilute support for the Democrat in the race, helping Republicans maintain their majority in the state Senate. Halfway through 2022, however, FPL'sfortunes have markedly soured: The company that just a few years ago looked like it held Florida'sshimmering coasts in the palm of its hand now faces a futuredarkened by scandal, embarrassmentand uncertainty. 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.. 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. The Florida Panhandle is in revolt over bills that some FPL customers claim are double or triple what they were paying under Southern Company's stewardship of Gulf Power. local news and culture, Alex DeLuca I feel rooftop solar is beneficial to the environment, and Floridians. to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. Headquartered in Montgomery, Matrix has been described there as the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-governmental secret agency. 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). Butone thing the leaked Matrix records make clear isthat more secrets remain on the firm's hard drive. Switching from oil or coal to natural gas is a very important step, but thats not enough, she said, adding that carbon capture, utilization and storage technology must be considerationsto further reduce emissions. (Neither Alabama Power nor its corporate parent, Southern Company, have commented on those disclosures.). Miami's independent source of Alissa Jean Schafer is a research and communications specialist at the Energy and Policy Institute. These email records were provided to the Times/Herald and Floodlight by the Energy & Policy Institute, a watchdog organization that works to counter misinformation about renewable energy. Theyve got the lobbying power, and weve got the people power.. Rodrguez was ousted from office in the next election. Before the prospect of JEA had even been formally proposed, Matrix employees were planting seeds intended to underminepublic confidence in the Jacksonville agency, potentially as early as 2017. The bill is just one front in a decade-long battle against the policy. The largest city served by the supplier is Jacksonville, but the company also provides electricity to 243 cities in Florida. Only about 90,000 Florida customers, about 1 percent of the states more than 8.5 million customers, sell excess energy back to the electrical grid, but the arrangement has driven significant rooftop solar expansion in Florida. Header Image Credit: YouTube, 10 Tampa Bay. While Matrix operatives quietly pulled strings for FPL, strife within their own firm boiled over. 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. Later that year, Floridianswould narrowly elect Ron DeSantis governor, the utility's preferred governing partner. He added that the net metering law has not been updated in 13 years and now is time to discuss it. The state senator went on to lose re-election by six votes. 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. Namely,how "clean" can, or should, an energy system be to make inroads in tacklingclimate change as the urgency heightens? Our programs are designed to make paying your bill simple and manageable. 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. 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 West County Energy Centeruses three combined-cycle generating units thatburnnatural gas in a turbine much like a jet engine and in turn usesthat exhaust to make a second power source of steam. Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Documents shared by an anonymous source show Silagy directing his team to make life hell for Florida senator Jos Javier Rodrguez. The money was allegedly funneled through a network of tax-exempt nonprofits that obscured its origin. In 2018, Perkins Communications received at least $1.49m from Alabama Power, a leaked contract shows. 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. "We're not making a connection," said John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy.
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