Just in December, the Public Service Commission approved a request from FPL to recover costs from customers due to a 10% increase in natural gas prices. FPLs campaign contributions appear to be on pace with the utilitys political giving of over $8.1 million in the 2018 gubernatorial cycle. In the remarkably successful years of its ambitious expansionism, secret records show FPL may have also been sowing the seeds of its more uncertain present. Three people were federally convicted for their role in the ploy. Thats not where the story ends, however, or the whole picture. At the start of the Monday earnings call, Ketchum, the NextEra chief executive, directly addressed the media reports and federal election complaint. From the beginning, Matrix showed no aversion to unsavory political tactics. 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. Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. He has denied the allegations. Media scrutiny of the company's political giving began shortly after the 2020 election, when a trio of spoiler candidates tipped close state senate races toward candidates considered friendly to Florida Power & Light. 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). Watchdog exposing the attacks on renewable energy and countering misinformation by fossil fuel interests, DeSantis faces Democrat and Utility Critic, Crist. FPL has a long history of spending to campaign against Crist, spending up to $1 million against Crists bid for governor in 2006 after contributing $225,000 to Crists opponent in the Republican primary the largest donation FPL had ever made at the time. In a 2020 email, Burgess wrote a former Matrix employee with an idea they could "cobble together however many millions of dollars it would take to buy ALL the Florida newspapers from Gannett and then we could let most of the clown reporters go, save a fortune, eliminate print, and syndicate content across the entire state.". for Floodlight and Annie Martin for Orlando Sentinel, he CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. 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. Letsgetstarted. Skeptics of that plan notably included the Office of Public Counsel, thewatchdog group that represents consumers before the Public Service Commission butwas thought to have been more friendly to utility interests after the installation of a longtime industry lobbyist in 2021. This legislation allowed for Kelly to be replaced with a former utility lobbyist, Richard Gentry. Matrix consultants had little regard for the professional press. They dont make money off of the solar power generated from rooftops. 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. Namely,how "clean" can, or should, an energy system be to make inroads in tacklingclimate change as the urgency heightens? Drop a line athmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter@mannahhorse. He says he told them that he was disappointed, but there was enough work for both of them, based on the good work they had done. Artiles has been connected to Florida utilities, including NextEra and its subsidiary Florida Power and Light (FPL), for years. However, those policies are coming under fire as utilities become. All of that work was a closely held secret until recently. ABC News cut ties with the producer immediately following that report. "Based on information in our possession, we believe that FPL would not be found liable for any of the Florida Campaign finance law violations as alleged in the media articles," Ketchum said. The complaint implicated Florida Power & Light in violations of election law due to alleged attempts to obscure the source of political donations. Pitts at the time forwarded a draft of the script to two FPL executives. Alabama Power still hasnt had a rate case. 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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. 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. The warm light racesacross a 600-mile expanse of land and coast before finally brightening the Perdido River in Escambia County on Florida's western border. And FPL is taking other public-relations hits that make the once-unstoppable company suddenly look more exposed:Earlier this month, for example,FPL uncharacteristically backed off a winter-hardeningproposal that critics alleged could have led to costly customer charges. Alissa Jean Schafer is a research and communications specialist at the Energy and Policy Institute. Ron DeSantis, approved FPLs rate hike, raising Floridians monthly bills by over $1.5 billion in the next few years with annual increases through 2025, while increasing FPLs profits. "We're not making a connection" between the reports and Silagy's retirement, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on the earnings call. The fliers warned residents not to let the Environmental Protection Agency test their soil for the presence of contaminants left by a coal plant. 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.. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. 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. Florida Power & Light denied any wrongdoing related to political campaigns. There are reasons to prefer alternatives that are not fossil-fuel intensive. Florida Power & Light has also invested millions into groups with untraceable, anonymous donors that launched attacks on state and local politicians. Many of the documents have since been verified by additional reporting, public records or Perkins himself. In other words, FPL's gas-fired plant produced almost 20% more power but with a third of the emissions as the coal-powered plant. That gave Matrix consultants and FPL executives input on Capitolist stories. "It is a decision that is not easy, but I feel good about moving forward and doing it when the company is in its strongest financial and operational position that it's ever been in with a very strong leadership team.". "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. 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. View MapReport Outage About FPL Company News Careers Environment Community Donate to Care To Share Rates and Your Bill 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. In all races, the Republican won the election. The company is making renewable energy investments, including: Patino-Echeverri said the utility industry as a whole is making strides to make its plants more efficient. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy was directly involved in steering funds to dark-money groups led by the consultants who controlled Grow United, the organization used to promote the ghost candidates, according to documents obtained by the Sentinel. There has to be a transition. The bill as it is written will decimate this industry.. President and CEO of Florida Power & Light Eric Silagy speaks to the media after FPL imploded its last Florida . 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. Big power companies operate as monopolies with captive customers in much of the south-east US. The negative is the immense amount of megawatts, but its a need for the community. Headquartered in Montgomery, Matrix has been described there as the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-governmental secret agency. ", FPL lauds its reliability and maintains it has the lowest electricity rates in the country. A Democratic state senator was proposing a law that could cut into Florida Power & Light's (FPL) profits. 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. Join the New Times community and help support The Governor also has veto power over legislation that Floridas GOP-majority legislature passes. '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. 2023 www.jacksonville.com. But Dennis, in an interview last year, recalled receiving a job offer with remarkable similarities to the one outlined in the internal Matrix documents. The proposed legislation could seriously curtail that growth. Too, FPL has not set a goal to reduce its emissions to zero because we believe in setting measurable and achievable goals, McGrath said. 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." And an additional kudos to the Miami Herald for its own story on the latest batch of leaked Matrix records, which can be read here. That is a fairly energy-intensive process in and of itself. This is a tired tactic that utilities have used to maintain their monopoly grip on electricity markets, said Will Giese, southeast regional director for the Solar Energy Industries Association. He is a former federal prosecutor with experience in public corruption cases.. "Based on the information we have, we . 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. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy Retires in Wake of Matrix Consultant Scandal Alex DeLuca January 25, 2023 11:52AM FPL CEO Eric Silagy (left) speaks with Gov. Indeed, the company's future looked bright. We took a 1960s-gas guzzling Cadillac and we replaced it with a Ford Focus hybrid, McGrath said. local news and culture, Alex DeLuca Within minutes, one of them forwarded the directive to the CEO of Matrix, LLC, a powerful but little-known political consulting firm that has operated behind the scenes in at least eight states. Records obtained by the Sentinel also show overlap between Grow United and previous campaigns to overhaul net metering. For years, Florida Power & Light has been one of the largest contributors to legislative Florida political campaigns. to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. Ive also.ccd Gera Peoples on this note. So they opted instead for Mayor Stoddards electoral defeat and changing the makeup of the board, according to a 2018 memo from Dan Newman, a Matrix contractor who was similarly involved in the campaign against Rodrguez. 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. Florida Power & Light is the largest electric utility in the state, serving more than 11 million people across vast swaths of Florida. Emails show that Bradleys staff followed up with Florida Power & Light after that discussion. While the report contemplates the impact of fracking and transporting natural gas, it is not quantified. Its CEO, Mark Crosswhite, stepped down in December. 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 dark money non-profit called "Grow United" is at the center of the scandal, with records showing direct communication with and invoices to FPL. In one case, at the suggestion of Silagy, FPL's CEO, Burgess included in a newsletter a photoshopped image of the Herald's Tallahassee bureau chief, Mary Ellen Klas, as a pauper begging for money. One-tenth of 1percent of the power comes from oil. Im not afraid if the conclusion is its not the time to do this. And additional reporting since last year has made it clear the leakedMatrix records contain legitimate information. And then apparently, somewhere along the way, Jeff and Joe got sideways, Silagy said. At the start of Monday's earnings call, Ketchum, the chief executive officer of NextEra, addressed media reports and the federal election grievance head-on. 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. 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