FirstEnergy targets2050 to become carbon free
CLEVELAND » Amid intense scrutiny of the roles company officials played in an alleged $60 million bribery scheme to obtain a $1 billion bailout for two aging nuclear power plants, the parent company of Met-Ed has announced a goal to become “carbon neutral” by 2050 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030.
The announcement this week from Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy came days after several top executives, including CEO Chuck
Jones, were fired by the company’s independent board of directors for violating company policies and its code of ethics. FirstEnergy announced earlier this week that its chief legal officer and chief ethics officers had been “separated” from the company without elaboration.
Federal authorities have alleged that FirstEnergy secretly funded the effort to win bailout legislation in 2019 for the Ohio nuclear plants operated by a subsidiary at the time. A new independently owned company took control of the plants from the subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, in February in a deal reached in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
FirstEnergy is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Ohio Elections Commission and a panel of independent members of the company’s board of directors.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is hiring an independent auditor to review FirstEnergy’s corporate policies during the period the Ohio Legislature considered the bailout legislation and when federal authorities allege FirstEnergy bankrolled a $38 million campaign led by then-House Speaker
Larry Householder to keep an antibailout referendum off the ballot.
Householder and four other men were arrested on July 21 and charged in federal court
with racketeering. Householder has pleaded not guilty. Two of the men, including Householder’s top aide, pleaded guilty last week.