PUCO acknowledges audit details can be unredacted

2023-12-22

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio acknowledged Friday what Checks & Balances Project has reported over the last few weeks: Much of the information redacted from an audit into the effects of Ohio’s HB 6 law no longer deserves protection. The ruling by PUCO Attorney Examiner Megan Addison concluded ““that it appears certain information contained… Read more »

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PUCO staff accepted utilities’ claims that information they made public were trade secrets

2023-12-21

Still-unnamed staff members of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio accepted utilities’ vague claims of trade secrecy when they recommended hiding information from the public audit of the state’s HB 6 law even though the utilities themselves had already made much of the data public. In December 2021, three utility companies sought a protective order… Read more »

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C&BP files FOIA request for details of PUCO protective order in HB 6 case

2023-12-14

Checks & Balances Project filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) Thursday, seeking the names and deliberations of staff members who recommended granting the protective order that hid key details from the audit into the effects of Ohio’s HB 6 law. The protective order granted July 7… Read more »

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Resource Fuels owner filed no lobbying reports despite pushing for HB 6

2023-12-13

The Boich Companies filed Ohio forms claiming they conducted no lobbying from 2017 through 2019, even though court records show their officials were intimately involved in the passage of HB 6, the law requiring state ratepayers to bail out two coal-fired power plants. Boich’s lobbying reports are another facet of the company’s stealth campaign to… Read more »

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References to Boich Companies in FirstEnergy deferred prosecution agreement

2023-12-13

Many of the activities of the Boich Companies, owners of coal supplier Resource Fuels, are included in the 2021 federal deferred prosecution agreement signed by FirstEnergy, the Akron-based utility that admitted bribing its way to the passage of HB 6, the 2019 law that bailed out power plants tied to the company. The deferred prosecution… Read more »

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Sam Randazzo indicted for role in Ohio’s HB 6 scandal

2023-12-4

Sam Randazzo, the former chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, was charged in an 11-count indictment for his involvement in the passage of the HB 6 that bailed out money-losing nuclear- and coal-fueled power plants and gutted Ohio’s renewable energy mandate. Randazzo, the PUCO chair from April 2019 until his resignation in November… Read more »

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