The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio continues to protect the coal company whose owner was one of the original donors to the dark money group that bribed former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder to ram the state’s corrupt HB 6 law through the legislature.
Resource Fuels of Columbus is owned by Wayne Boich, a longtime Householder supporter who donated $25,000 to Generation Now, the fund used to bribe Householder and run ads aimed at passing the law. The donation by Boich and his wife Cynthia was one of the first to the fund.
HB 6 requires Ohio electricity customers to subsidize the money-losing coal-fired electricity plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp. (OVEC), which had a 10-year contract to buy coal from Resource Fuels.
The law required PUCO to audit the costs of the law every three years. The commission approved the first audit on Aug. 21, ruling that OVEC’s costs for coal, including what it paid Resource Fuels, were “reasonable and prudent.”
Coal cost 40 percent more
The audit conducted by London Economics International (LEI) noted that OVEC paid up to 40 percent more for the coal it bought from Resource Fuel than another company, Alliance Coal, although the coal from both companies came from the same mine — Alliance’s River View mine in Kentucky.
But PUCO’s ruling claimed the higher costs were because Resource Fuels was supplying better coal than Alliance Coal.
It wasn’t.
Data supplied by OVEC to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that the coal from each company had the same heat content and came from the River View mine. In fact, EIA data show that Resource Fuels supplied the same quality coal since its OVEC contract started in 2013.
PUCO attempted to justify its ruling by citing a Sept. 6, 2023, decision in favor of payments for Duke Energy Ohio and OVEC that said “higher costs were attributable to, among other things, higher quality coal and existing obligations with suppliers.”
LEI performed the audit in the Duke case and claimed that in 2019 the companies supplying coal for OVEC’s Clifty Creek plant were providing higher-quality coal than what their contracts required. However, EIA data for 2018 and 2019 show that the coal quality was no different in 2019 from the previous year and that Resource Fuels’ coal was no better than that from Alliance Coal.
In both 2018 and 2019, the Resource Fuels coal cost an average of 35 percent more, even though it came from the same mine and was of the same quality as Alliance Coal’s.
Resource Fuels cover-up
PUCO has covered up the overpayments to Resource Fuels throughout the audit into HB 6. First, commission staff members issued a protective order hiding the name of OVEC’s coal suppliers and the prices paid for it, even though that information is routinely available on the EIA website.
It was only because of testimony by outside analysts that Resource Fuels was identified as an OVEC supplier. Records released in the 2023 bribery case against Householder, the architect of HB 6, revealed that Resource Fuels’ owner, Wayne Boich, was one of the first donors to the political fund used to bribe Householder to get HB 6 passed.
Testimony by another outside expert in the HB 6 audit, Elizabeth Stanton, showed that Resource Fuels was paid $36 million more for the coal it supplied OVEC than other companies. HB 6 requires Ohio ratepayers to subsidize the operations of OVEC’s money-losing power plants.
PUCO eventually agreed to lift the part of the protective order that hid the names of OVEC’s coal suppliers, but that ruling was buried in a lengthy hearing transcript and the names of the suppliers remained redacted in the LEI audit posted on the commission’s website.
If not for the Householder trial and the outside analysts reviewing the LEI audit, the identity of Resource Fuels and Boich’s contributions to Generation Now would have remained hidden from the public while the company continued to profit from its excessive prices.
Although Matt Evans, a Boich executive, worked closely with Householder to pass HB 6, the Boich Companies failed to file state lobbying reports that showed their activity.
The 2020 LEI audit into the Duke payments also redacted the name of Resource Fuels and the cost of its coal. PUCO staffers granted an overly broad protective order sought by Duke in that case, too.
Getting away with it
Resource Fuels’ contract with OVEC has expired. Although two audits and several outside analysts have noted the 35 percent to 40 percent premium OVEC paid for the overpriced coal, PUCO commissioners and its staff have validated the company’s bonanza.
In its audit of the Duke 2019 payments, LEI accepted Duke’s claim that Resource Fuels was paid a premium for its coal, because it was of higher quality than the contract with OVEC required. That claim is questionable at best.
“In those months, the coal suppliers shipped a quality (heating BTU value) higher than the contractual requirements and thus earned a higher price, per the terms of the agreements,” the Sept. 6, 2023, PUCO ruling says.
Data provided by OVEC to EIA show that Resource Fuels supplied coal of the same quality to OVEC since its contract started in 2013. EIA records show no increase in the coal’s heat content between 2013 and 2020.
Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.
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