2024 - Page 3 of 4 - Checks and Balances Project

Who’s a hero to indicted Sam Randazzo? Kevon Martis

2024-02-24

Sam Randazzo, the former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio chairman indicted for corruption by federal and Ohio prosecutors, spent much of his career fighting renewable energy projects. One of his longtime collaborators was Kevon Martis, the roving anti-renewable energy activist who will appear Saturday at an anti-solar rally in Mount Vernon, Ohio. During a May… Read more »

False claims common at Martis’ anti-renewable rallies

2024-02-23

Whenever Kevon Martis, who speaks at multiple rallies against renewable energy projects, appears, false claims are sure to follow. Speakers claim that renewable energy projects lower property values or make people sick. Many times, those claims are provably false. Martis is scheduled to appear Saturday, Feb. 24, at a rally in Mount Vernon, Ohio, against… Read more »

Delayed justice finally comes calling for HB 6 players

2024-02-22

For three and a half years, some of the main actors in Ohio’s HB 6 corruption scandal seemed to skate past any legal consequences for their actions, but a pair of recent indictments show that justice delayed may no longer mean justice denied. On Dec. 4, former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) chairman Sam… Read more »

HB 6 prevents OVEC from replacing old coal-fired plants with anything better

2024-02-18

The utilities that share ownership of the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. (OVEC) have closed all or some of the units at 28 coal-fired power plants since 2010, citing environmental concerns, high costs and age as some of the reasons for their closing, a Checks & Balances Project analysis shows. The closures removed at least 22,527… Read more »

Longtime coal industry ally Husted says it’s time to repeal HB 6

2024-02-1

Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, a longtime ally of indicted former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio chairman Sam Randazzo, says it’s time to repeal HB 6, the law that Randazzo helped write and which subsidizes two coal-fired power plants. “I think that anything that was connected to House Bill 6 needs to be completely removed,”… Read more »

PUCO accepted utilities’ claims of trade secrecy at face value

2024-01-31

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio granted a protective order in its ongoing audit into the effects of the HB 6 law, based largely on the utilities’ claims of trade secrecy and the lack of any opposition to those claims, according to a revised protective order issued last week. “The existing protective order was granted,… Read more »

PUCO let utility redact information from audit examining electricity prices

2024-01-28

Staff members of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio allowed officials of utility company AEP to redact parts of an audit into the operations of the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., a series of emails between PUCO staff and AEP show. The emails were introduced last week in the case surrounding the first audit into the… Read more »

OVEC power plants were losing between $150,000 and $175,000 a day, emails show

2024-01-23

The coal-fired power plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp. (OVEC) were losing between $150,000 to $175,000 a day in April 2020, according to emails between officials of Duke Energy, one of the utilities that owns part of OVEC. John Swez, Duke’s director of generation dispatch, said Duke should propose to the OVEC board that… Read more »

Utilities don’t want to answer questions about OVEC’s finances or generation strategy

2024-01-18

Two of the utility companies that own the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. (OVEC) want to keep the public from learning about how OVEC’s two money-losing coal plants are allowed to operate at will and send expensive electricity to the grid because of Ohio’s scandal-plagued HB 6 law. Ohio Power, also known as AEP Ohio, and… Read more »

New filings challenge HB 6 audit protective order

2024-01-10

Ohio consumer advocates and major utility customers want the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to disclose more information from the audit into the effects of Ohio’s scandal-plagued HB 6 law. The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel and major consumers, including grocery giant Kroger, filed motions with PUCO this week seeking the end to the protective order granted… Read more »

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