House Bill 6: Attorney General files second lawsuit to stop collection of funds

Ohio’s Attorney General has filed a second lawsuit aimed at preventing the owner of the state’s two nuclear power plants from collecting funds generated under a bill at the center of an alleged bribery scandal.

Under House Bill 6, Ohio residential electric ratepayers will pay an additional 85 cents per month from 2021 to 2027 as part of an estimated $150 million per year collection to subsidize the state’s two nuclear power plants, including the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in North Perry.

Attorney General Dave Yost calls his new civil suit filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court an “ancillary action” to the civil suit his office filed in September. Yost said without this second filing, “these so-called nuclear generation fees could still be collected from Ohioans but then held in limbo during litigation.”

Plant owner, Energy Harbor, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, is named in the suit. The company filed for bankruptcy in March 2018

and had plans to shut down both plants by 2021 if it did not receive subsidies. FirstEnergy Solutions officials emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy Feb. 27 under its new name.

Former Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder and four others are facing federal charges for allegedly violating “the racketeering statute through honest services wire fraud, receipt of millions of dollars in bribes and money laundering.”

Federal investigators allege that Generation Now was incorporated in February 2017 as a “social welfare entity purporting to promote energy independence and economic development,” but was secretly controlled by Householder. Millions of dollars from the electric company known in the complaint as “Company A” were allegedly used to support Householder’s bid to become speaker, to support House candidates believed to back Householder for the position and for personal benefit.

Also named in Yost’s latest suit are two “pro forma government defendants,” (the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority and Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague) who are not accused of any involvement in the alleged scandal, but are named because they have administrative roles in the distribution of the funds, Yost said.

The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority is the agency responsible for distributing funds from the nuclear generation fund created by House Bill 6. Sprague is the custodian of the nuclear generation fund created by the bill, according to the lawsuit.

Yost said in the lawsuit that Ohio law “does not permit a refund of a tariff improperly granted.” Injunctive relief is “necessary to stop at least the distribution, and ideally the collection, of the corruptly en

acted rate tariff.”

“The people of Ohio are about to be shaken down for money they should not have to pay based on how HB6 was enacted,” Yost said in a statement. “There is no process in place to return the money to residents once it leaves their accounts – so why take it?”

In late October two of the men arrested for their alleged roles in the scandal, FirstEnergy lobbyist Juan Cespedes and political strategist Jeff Longstreth, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.

Following the arrests of Householder and the others in July, some Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for House Bill 6 to be repealed. Householder’s replacement as Speaker of the House, Bob Cupp, RLima, formed a committee to consider potential repeal/replacement plans for the bill. So far no action has been taken.

A message to an Energy Harbor spokesperson seeking comment was not immediately returned.

“The people of Ohio are about to be shaken down for money they should not have to pay based on how HB6 was enacted. There is no process in place to return the money to residents once it leaves their accounts – so why take it?” — Ohio attorney General Dave Yost