Run by a former Rick Scott spokesman, Brian Burgess, The Capitolist often focused criticism not on powerful industry players or politicians but on individual journalists at publications like the Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and Times-Union that had crossed the interests of one of the state's large corporations, like FPL. He is suing Pitts in Alabama for fraud and conspiracy. The sex worker later testified the allegations were untrue, and that she had been paid by a Birmingham businessman to make them. ABC News cut ties with the producer immediately following that report. Records obtained by the Sentinel also show overlap between Grow United and previous campaigns to overhaul net metering. Drop a line athmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter@mannahhorse. And the job was to come with one key hitch: To accept it, Dennis would have to leave his council position. 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. The non-profit, called Broken Promises, first donated the funds to a political committee called Consumers for Energy Fairness. There has to be a transition. Pimentel will rejoin the company on Feb. 15 and work with Silagy until his departure. Forgive me for being unserious at a time when companies like Florida Power & Light (FPL)the nation's largest utilitykeep racking up scandals, but it's kind of hard to keep track of the. Customers at the time were paying some of the highest rates for electricity in the south-east. Today, FPL said, two-thirds of its power comes from natural gas, followed by nearly 20% nuclear, 4% solar and almost 3% coal, which comes from a plant NextEra partially owns out of state. FPL has echoed Pitts' allegations and called into question the veracity of some of the leaked records, although it has repeatedly refused to provide evidence the documents have been altered in any way. They dont make money off of the solar power generated from rooftops. Following up right after Ketchum's comments, Silagy said that his predecessors had held their roles for about a decade each, and that gearing up for another multi-year rate case with state regulators would mean he would have to stay until 2026. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and electricity production accounts for 25% of the greenhouse gases emitted in the United States in 2019. one of the largest contributors to legislative Florida political campaigns, would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. Political editor Emily L. Mahoney will send you a rundown on local, state and national politics coverage every Thursday. Its parent company had initiated an investigation of related media reports there. 2023 www.jacksonville.com. Those who provoked the utilitys ire suffered a harsh response. 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. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. 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 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.. 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. The proposed bill would allow landlords to sell cheap solar panels to their tenants. [] NextAmid Connections to Ongoing Election Scandals, NextEra Pours Millions into Floridas 2022 []. Earlier this year, current PSC members, appointed by Gov. He is a former federal prosecutor with experience in public corruption cases.. Justin Vandenbroeck, the president of the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association who also owns an Orlando-based solar installation company, said the solar industry consists mostly of independently-owned small businesses. 'Off-the-books political strategy':FPL consultants secretly took command, control of Florida news website, reports say, Nate Monroe:Surveillance records at the heart of a tangled mess between FPL and a former consultant. Yet he acknowledged that the reports may have had an influence on the decision. FPL has already passed the $5.1 million total amount it spent in the 2020 cycle. A week later, state Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Plant City, introduced an identical version in the House. Ive also.ccd Gera Peoples on this note. That decision catapulted the growth of small-scale solar capacity in the state. He has denied the allegations. 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. Reporting by the Orlando Sentinel and the Miami Herald tied Silagy to a group of political consultants who had spent millions of dollars to secretly further the power company's political goals. During his decade-long tenure as FPL chief, Silagy oversaw billions of dollars worth of power plant conversions from coal and oil to natural gas electric generation. It backed a failed ballot amendment in 2016 that would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. In all, the centerproduces enough electricity for 750,000 homes and businesses. Consultants who control Grow United billed FPL for over $3 million before the entity started moving funds around for the election scheme. These customers are a mix of 88.48% residential customer accounts, 11.29% commercial customers and 0.22% industrial properties. In each of those cases, Matrix was working against politicians or policies fighting to curb the climate crisis by encouraging renewable power. DeSantis is running against former Republican Governor and current Democratic nominee Charlie Crist, who has been a vocal critic of FPL throughout his political career. McClure conceded the bill is not baked.. 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 . independent local journalism in Miami. Last June, Florida Power & Light spokesperson David Reuter wrote that the initial review had exonerated the company: "This detailed report found no evidence of illegality or wrongdoing on the part of FPL or any of its employees." Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. Florida Power & Light says the cost of subsidizing its 24,000 net-metering customers was $30 million in 2020 (about $1,250 per customer). Ketchum also reiterated that when he was named to the NextEra CEO role after Jim Robo stepped down, Silagy had committed to Ketchum that he would lead FPL for at least one more year. Money from the company also covertly secured favorable media coverage, investigations by the Orlando Sentinel, the Miami Herald, the Guardian, NPR, and Floodlight found. And additional reporting since last year has made it clear the leakedMatrix records contain legitimate information. 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. Please provide us with the Personal Identification Number (PIN) that you were given for a co-browse session with our representative. 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. Rob Bradley, an influential politician who was head of the Senate budget committee. We need to have the debate, he said. The negative is the immense amount of megawatts, but its a need for the community. 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. Overall, McGrath said the modernization improvements have made their plants 30% more efficient, saved customers more than $11 billion in fuel and kept 165 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted in the atmosphere. Methane is 25 times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA. 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. FPLs campaign contributions appear to be on pace with the utilitys political giving of over $8.1 million in the 2018 gubernatorial cycle. That gave Matrix consultants and FPL executives input on Capitolist stories. Over the course of DeSantis tenure, he used that veto power once to block an anti-rooftop solar bill written by FPL. The job was to be with a shell nonprofit created by Matrix employees that supported marijuana decriminalization and, on its face, had no connection to FPL. He said what he found was deeply disturbing. Two days later, Florida Division of Elections records show, Florida Power & Lights parent company, NextEra Energy, gave $10,000 to Bradleys political committee, Women Building the Future. Along with a private investigator, the group delved into Stoddards past for episodes to weaponize against him, such as a South Miami commissioners claim on Facebook that Stoddard had forcibly kissed her. Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Knowing this may inspire consumers to seek out energy-efficient solutions in their own homes like LED lighting, efficient air conditioners or improving insulation and be more aware of the electricity they use, how they use it and perhaps use less. Get the FPL Mobile App. Florida now has the second-largest solar workforce in the country about 11,000 direct jobs and 31,000 indirect ones, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Four other FPL natural gas plants also made the list, but are still ranked among the most efficient in terms of emissions per megawatt hour of energy produced. FPL's former consultants orchestrated a financial takeover of a small Tallahassee-based political news site with a conservativebent that allowed the utility's highest executives to weigh in with editorial decisions, the internal Matrix records show. Going through those tens of thousands ofrecords, he said, alerted him to the extent of work Pitts performed without his knowledge. 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. Bradley filed the bill in November. However, those policies are coming under fire as utilities become increasingly concerned about how the growth of distributed solar energy affects their bottom line. Im hopeful this is a conversation starter but, at the same time, its really hard to have a conversation when you have a gun to your head. The plan ultimately failed, and Stoddard was re-elected. Headquartered in Montgomery, Matrix has been described there as the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-governmental secret agency. 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. small-scale solar capacity in the state. "We could even do it stealthily so we could inject content into all those publications and nobody has to know who's actually pulling the strings," he wrote. 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. NeitherFPL executives nor the consultants identified in the secret records have been accused of wrongdoing in that investigation. invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. Miami's independent source of Early in the evening of Nov. 26, 2019, the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, a political consultant working for utility giant Florida Power & Light sent a pair of confidential documents to an email . You gotta bow down and kiss the ring.. That is a fairly energy-intensive process in and of itself. A Democratic state senator was proposing a law that could cut into Florida Power & Light's (FPL) profits. 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. to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. 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. The issue extends to several states. A Democratic state senator was proposing a law that could cut into Florida Power & Lights (FPL) profits. Very early on in this bills ride, I think it has a real chance to settle out in a way that most parties are not upset, he said. FPL has acknowledged it received the idea but insists the company immediately rejected it. 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. Theres no time and its urgent, she said. All rights reserved. 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