He is also suing Perkins, alleging defamation and extortion. 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. 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. 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. While Matrix operatives quietly pulled strings for FPL, strife within their own firm boiled over. Matrix also exerted political influence through the press, with its operatives acquiring control of a Tallahassee-based politics news site, The Capitolist. Hundreds of pages of internal documents which are only coming to light now because Matrixs founders are locked in an epic feud detail the firms secret work to help power companies like FPL protect their profits and fight the transition to cleaner forms of energy. 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.". Florida Power & Light customers who paid $101.70 last year for a typical monthly bill of 1,000 . '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. to documents submitted to the Florida Public Service Commission. During an investigation by this newspaper, as well as the Sentinel and Floodlight, FPL became at least vaguely threatening about our decision to continue reporting. 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. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the firms activities. 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. Records obtained by Floodlight and the Orlando Sentinel show that Matrix consulted for FPL, as well as another Florida company, Gulf Power, and Alabama Power. The non-profit, called Broken Promises, first donated the funds to a political committee called Consumers for Energy Fairness. 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." Documents shared by an anonymous source show Silagy directing his team to make life hell for Florida senator Jos Javier Rodrguez. "We contributeto organizations where we're aligned on what the ultimate goal is, and from the standpoint of having the Senate at the time, who was being led by (Senate President) Wilton Simpson, continue to be able to be led by Wilton Simpson,I was a fan of that," FPL CEO Eric Silagy, recently told me and several other journalists with the Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight in a wide-ranging interview in Jacksonville. Dunn lost his 2014 re-election campaign by a 19-point margin to Chip Beeker, a catfish farmer who is still in office. 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. 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. Meanwhile, groups aligned with the utility falsely tied Dunn to the Obama administrations efforts to reduce the use of coal. 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. 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. Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. She said the support she got from other teams was 'overwhelming. Perkins called Matrixs work for the utility confidential. 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. Indeed, Find Energy also named NextEra Energy, FPLs parent company, as one of the top renewable energy producers in the country, with another one of its subsidiaries, NextEra Energy Resources, running solar and wind projects across the country. 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. Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy announced his retirement on Wednesday. DeSantis, who is attempting to build a populist profile ahead of a presidential run in 2024,has turned on FPL, having used his veto pen earlier this year to kill one of the utility's highest legislative priorities a controversial bill that would have limited the growth of the residential rooftop solar industryin Florida. We are consistently one of the cleanest electric utilities in the country, FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said. 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. Its CEO, Mark Crosswhite, stepped down in December. 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. FPL CEO Eric Silagy (left) speaks with Gov. Thats a trend nationwide, as power company profits are threatened by the rise of distributed renewable energy a technology which scientists say is essential to limiting the pollution that causes the climate crisis. NextEra officials say that investigation is close to completion. 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 . Matrix employees had a Jacksonville journalist spied on after he wrote critically about FPL. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. F lorida Power & Light is an investor owned company. Over the course of DeSantis tenure, he used that veto power once to block an anti-rooftop solar bill written by FPL. The last year of Silagy's leadership was marked by high natural gas prices; the global supply chain crisis; two disastrous hurricanes; and a barrage of damning media reports. 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. FPL bristled at the inclusion of its power plantson the list bythe website Find Energy, which aggregates and analyzes finalized government data on electricity companies. Miami's independent source of And the job was to come with one key hitch: To accept it, Dennis would have to leave his council position. 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. 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. 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. Customer Support. There were a lot of challenges that we successfully managed," he said. We simply believe rooftop solar customers should pay the full cost of this investment, McGrath said. While the utility has contributed over $105,000 to the Florida Democratic Party, neither Crist nor his political committee has reported any political contributions from NextEra or the companys subsidiaries during this or previous cycles. 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. Its the right thing to do for our state.. hide caption. At least its not coal., The intent of the report was to highlight coal and the negative of coal and offer information that may be pertinent to those who live near the plants, Hope said. 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. 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. Just as well, such a reliance on natural gas leaves consumers susceptible to the volatility of gas prices. Top executives at utility giant Florida Power & Light worked closely with the political consultants who orchestrated a scheme to promote spoiler candidates in three key state Senate elections last year, according to documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. A Democratic state senator was proposing a law that could cut into Florida Power & Light's (FPL) profits. The mayor, Lenny Curry, was ideologically predisposed to privatize a large government agency like JEA, and both the official and political arms of his office were surrounded by friends of FPL. Pitts at the time forwarded a draft of the script to two FPL executives. "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. Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. "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. You need this large power plant.. Its parent company had initiated an investigation of related media reports there. Records show FPL trusted Matrix operatives with millions, including giving $14m to a single Matrix-run nonprofit in 2018 alone. If were trying to look all in, theres a whole lot to consider upstream from just the burning of the fuel., FPLs McGrath said the Find Energyreport also doesnt tell the companys whole modernization story.. A local law firm and the company that owned the coal plant used the charity to pay the representative. A week later, state Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Plant City, introduced an identical version in the House. Out of this, the FPL executive told Burgess, according to the Herald. 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. See How. 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. About a decade ago, FPL made the fateful decision to hire Matrix LLC, an Alabama-based political consulting firm notorious in its home state but with little public profile in Florida. As such, it would seem the FPL plantsinclusion on the list is unfair. We are committed to being as clean as we can as fast as we can without sacrificing reliability or affordability, McGrath said. It was based on our discussion, and it was one that I could support as a starting point, she recalled. The sex worker later testified the allegations were untrue, and that she had been paid by a Birmingham businessman to make them. Inat least one case, they had this Times-Union columnist surveilled, according to the secret records. According to FPL, the plant also has the best available and most advanced emission-control equipment.. 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. Methane is 25 times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA. But advocates fear that a FPL-drafted bill to rewrite the states net metering rules will slowly chip away at the main financial incentive for homeowners and businesses to go solar. Theres no time and its urgent, she said. Learn More About FPL News Company Careers Environment Community Donate to Care To Share Rates and Your Bill About Energy Energy My Way Ensuring Reliability Clean Energy Solar Electric Vehicles Power Disturbances Safety Partner Resources Supplier Home and Login PIC Login Crist secured a deal to freeze FPL rates in 2005 as Attorney General, and he opposed FPLs $1.3 billion rate increase in 2009, which was then blocked by Crist appointees at the PSC. Money from the company also covertly secured favorable media coverage, investigations by the Orlando Sentinel, the Miami Herald, the Guardian, NPR, and Floodlight found. Join the New Times community and help support The warm light races across a 600-mile expanse of land and coast before finally brightening the Perdido River in Escambia County on Florida's western border. Silagy is to be replaced by Armando Pimentel, a former senior executive at NextEra Energy. Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street. I want you to make his life a living hell seriously, FPLs CEO Eric Silagy wrote in a 2019 email to two of his vice-presidents about state Senator Jos Javier Rodrguez, who proposed the legislation. Ricardo Rossello, governor of Puerto Rico, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, as power was being restored to a neighborhood in February 2018, five months after Hurricane Irma struck the area. The charity was a front established by a state representative. Also, after reports that an outside FPL consultant had tailed a Florida Times-Union journalist who reported critically on the utility, Silagy sat down with reporters to deny that FPL had ever directed anyone to monitor him. January 25, 2023 That is a fairly energy-intensive process in and of itself. So Florida Power & Light did something about it. 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. Ricardo Rossello,. In California, regulators plan to increase fees on rooftop solar customers. That growth has the utilities, and legislators, worried. NextEra Energy said its political committee did not make its contribution to Bradleys campaign with an expectation of favor.. While some of the actions taken by FPL tick the boxes to reduce emissions, more can be done, Shober said. We took a 1960s-gas guzzling Cadillac and we replaced it with a Ford Focus hybrid, McGrath said. The Senate District 37 scandal was one of three races in Florida in the 2020 cycle that followed a nearly identical pattern: A close race, an unknown third party candidate to siphon some of the votes, and campaign . Matrix affiliated groups have also worked to advance power companies interests in Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and in front of the Environmental Protection Agency, public records show. The nuclear project was part of what the group deemed a "record of failure," rhetoric that borea remarkable similarity to the talking points later used by the mayor and privatization supporters to justify selling JEA. The sites publisher, Brian Burgess, a former top spokesperson for past Florida governor Rick Scott, also suggested in emails that Matrix should lure prominent Florida journalists to a new site or buy local papers owned by media giant Gannett Company and then lay off most of the clown reporters to inject content into publications without anyone knowing who was pulling the strings. In 1998, the firm distributed copies of a video in which a sex worker falsely alleged she had been sexually assaulted by a candidate for lieutenant governor. Do you need this bus to transport this many people, and do you need it to be this large? she asked hypothetically. 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. 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. So far, there have been two criminal investigations into the campaign against Rodrguez and another Democratic state senate candidate, leading to charges against five people, though authorities have not accused Matrix or FPL of wrongdoing. NextEra Energy and its subsidiaries, Florida Power & Light and Florida City Gas, have poured nearly $6 million into state level campaign funds and political committees. Florida Power & Light argues that arrangement is unfair to customers who dont generate their own power but continue to pay for the costs of maintaining the grid that rooftop solar customers also use. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida Still,plants with high emissions are going to draw attention in the overall effort to cut down ongreenhouse gas, experts say. The fact that (West County Energy Center is) using natural gas is a plus, Matt Hope, chief operating officer of Find Energy, said inrecognizing that the report factors in a plants efficiency, but doesnt focus on it. The Governor also has veto power over legislation that Floridas GOP-majority legislature passes. You gotta bow down and kiss the ring.. Another factor is promoting energy efficiency at the consumer level, Shober said. It backed a failed ballot amendment in 2016 that would have allowed regulators to impose fees and barriers to rooftop solar installation. While the transition to natural gas has reduced emissions that would otherwise come from oil or gas, and installing utility-scale solar is an important step, getting to zero emissions takes a lot more than that, she said. They are supposed to be closely regulated, but their profits and unchecked political spending makes them some of the most powerful entities in a state. small-scale solar capacity in the state. One of those Democrats,Sen. Jos Javier Rodrguez, happened to be both a prominent member of his party and an incumbent FPL particularly despised. 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. Work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday to a single Matrix-run nonprofit in 2018 alone time... The consumer level, Shober said giving $ 14m to a single Matrix-run nonprofit 2018... 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