At the start of August, we explained how the Ohio bill bailing out coal and nuclear plants with consumer cash was a boon to Trump pal Bob Murray. Murray’s company supplied the FirstEnergy coal plants with their climate-killing fuel, so what’s good for FirstEnergy, like this bill, is also good for Murray.
Now that we’re at the end of August, there have been some interesting developments in the situation: consumers have banded together to try and overturn the law through a ballot initiative.
In response, a new group supporting the bailout has put out a crazy TV ad that uses anti-Chinese fearmongering to discourage anyone from signing any petitions on the subject. Featuring stock footage of Chinese leadership and people, the spot warns that the Chinese, having already stolen Ohio jobs, are now coming for the state’s power grid.
Why? Because supposedly one of the groups collecting signatures to overturn the bill is backed by natural gas companies, which in turn are invested in by Chinese banks. When a spokesperson for the referendum group was asked if China is funding the group, he said “that’s a ridiculous question” and committed to following disclosure requirements.
It’s not technically known who the backers are for the group running the ad, but when asked whether or not FirstEnergy funds the group that’s supporting a bill that gives money to FirstEnergy, a spokesperson responded with a standard non-denial denial that dodged the question.
“I can tell you this,” Carlo LoParo of Ohioans for Energy Security said, “we're not taking money from companies that are heavily invested from foreign governments, the other side can't say the same."
When pressed further on whether that means they’re taking money from FirstEnergy, LoParo said only that they would “abide by all the laws that govern organizations like ours and ballot issue committee,” which would be a weird response if he could have just said “no.”
Plus, we know that FirstEnergy is lobbying heavily around the bill, and isn’t above dangling cash or incentives in front of people to buy their support. For example, the Energy & Policy Institute has uncovered that in the process of building support for the bill, FirstEnergy lobbyists basically bought the vote of a formerly skeptical Republican state lawmaker. They did so by inviting him to a forum with FirstEnergy’s CEO, who said that that if they got this bailout, they could probably keep a power plant in his district open, but if they didn’t, it would close.
The lawmaker ultimately issued a press statement bragging about his support for the bill.
Meanwhile, over at the Heartland Institute, it’s getting harder and harder to believe the claim that they are a free-market charity fighting against the government picking winners and losers, as they ran a piece praising this bill.
Apparently, government interference in the free market is good when it helps coal and hurts renewables.