State utility regulators preparing for Ohio House Bill 6 hearing
Natural gas meter with pipe on wall. Stock photo from Getty Images.
Ohio utility regulators are gearing up for hearings on FirstEnergy's role in the House Bill 6 scandal. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is behind bars — although seeking a presidential pardon — for overseeing the largest corruption case in state history.
FirstEnergy funneled about $60 million to a dark money group controlled by Householder. The former speaker used that money to secure his own leadership position and influence passage of HB 6. The measure propped up a pair of nuclear plants and aging coal facilities by tacking a rider onto consumers' monthly bills.
But that's just the broad strokes. Nearly five years on from Householder's indictment, questions remain about how exactly the scheme unfolded and where FirstEnergy officials got the money for it. Half a dozen former FirstEnergy officials in government affairs and c-suite positions are set to testify in a PUCO hearing next week. Four of them previously pled the Fifth and have since received immunity from a Franklin County judge.
At the heart of the case, the Ohio Consumers' Counsel wants to demonstrate whether FirstEnergy used the money it got from average consumers to bribe state officials.
In January, former FirstEnergy executives Charles 'Chuck' Jones and Michael Dowling were indicted on federal racketeering charges. Last year, state officials filed more than 40 charges against the executives as well as the man they bribed, former PUCO chairman Sam Randazzo. Last week, a judge in Summit County dismissed theft charges against Jones and Dowling, but they still face several other state criminal charges.
The PUCO proceedings focus on the employees one rung below Jones and Dowling, attempting to show how money moved in the scheme by gathering testimony from the foot soldiers who answered to FirstEnergy's leadership.
Four of the witnesses previously refused to testify, citing their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. A Franklin County judge ordered them to testify and granted them 'the broadest possible immunity' from prosecution.
Ohio indictments provide a better picture of squalid relationships that spurred massive scandal
The PUCO will also hear from Steven Strah, the former CFO who took over FirstEnergy following Jones' ouster, and Robert Reffner, the company's chief legal officer at the time of the scandal.
The Ohio Consumers' Counsel subpoenas argue consumers were wrongly charged more than $6.6 million, and another $7.4 million was incorrectly listed as a capital expenditure. Compelling testimony, the filings argue, 'will help establish how and why FirstEnergy improperly misallocated House Bill 6 costs to the FirstEnergy Utilities.'
'We look forward to getting answers for FirstEnergy consumers and holding FirstEnergy accountable,' Ohio Consumers' Counsel Maureen Willis said in a statement. 'Justice for FirstEnergy consumers is long overdue.'
Just over a month ago, state lawmakers voted to put an end to the House Bill 6 rider tacked on to ratepayers' monthly bills. The legislation won't take effect until August. Democrats in the Ohio House, meanwhile, argue the door remains open for next House Bill 6.
'No law in Ohio prevented this scandal,' state Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, D-Westlake, argued at a press conference last month. 'And since, not one law has even remotely been truly attempted to fix this massive injustice.'
Sweeney, and state Reps. Chris Glassburn, D-North Olmsted, Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, and Desiree Tims, D-Dayton, have filed bills that would require contribution disclosures to or so-called dark money groups, institute penalties for undermining signature gathering campaigns and bar companies that make contributions from receiving state contracts.
The PUCO will hold a procedural hearing this morning, with the evidentiary portion of the case beginning next week, on June 10. The hearings themselves will likely take several days.
Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
22 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
A new California winery will change your mind about Chardonnay
It's become fashionable in recent years to praise lean, laser-focused California Chardonnay — some would say 'Chablis-style' Chardonnay — as a rebuke to the overblown butter-and-oak bombs that proliferated beginning in the 1990s. But that line of thinking neglects to account for the full-bodied California Chardonnays that are made well — expertly, even. When a winemaker gets it right, there's nothing like it. A rich Chardonnay can be as luscious as uni melting on the tongue, as decadent as a smear of soft-ripened cheese, as satisfying as biting into a juicy, runny peach. A new Sonoma County winery, Sphaerics, makes a convincing argument for this style. It produces Chardonnay exclusively, and all three of its single-vineyard wines are rich and complex, with a tense line of acidity that keeps them in balance. Now, three years in, Sphaerics will expand its small production thanks to the purchase of its own Sonoma Coast vineyard. Since meeting as students at U.C. Davis, Laura Jones and Brian Ball had always wanted to start their own winery, said Ball, 'but only if we can make something really unbelievable.' The couple have each had varied careers in the wine industry and now both work at Skipstone Ranch in Alexander Valley; he's the general manager, she's the winemaker. They set their sights on Chardonnay, not only because it's what they love to drink but also because Jones loves making it. Jones spent five years as the assistant winemaker at Aubert Wines in Calistoga, arguably the benchmark producer of rich, creamy, indulgent California Chardonnay. (Conveniently, Skipstone's only white wine is a Viognier, so there's no competition with their employer.) Their opportunity arrived in 2022, when the Jackson family offered to sell them Chardonnay grapes from the Upper Barn Vineyard, one of Skipstone's neighbors in Alexander Valley. Upper Barn has a notable legacy with some of the most prestigious names of the rich-Chardonnay camp: Helen Turley made Upper Barn Chardonnay when she was the winemaker for Peter Michael Winery, where it became a bottling known as Mon Plaisir, 'my pleasure.' She also used Upper Barn grapes for her own label, Marcassin. Turley's protégé Mark Aubert later made the Upper Barn Chardonnay when he worked for Peter Michael. Now Aubert's protégé, Jones, would be the next steward of these grapes. 'It was like this mentor-to-protégé winemaker family tree,' Ball said. They call the Upper Barn Chardonnay 'If and Only If,' a reference to their condition for starting the winery in the first place. The 2023 vintage is very expressive, reminding me of marzipan, ginger and apricot. As creamy and full as it is, it has a persistent, refreshing brightness. 'I love really long fermentations,' said Jones. She ferments her Chardonnays in barrels using indigenous yeast, and they typically don't complete their secondary malolactic fermentations until the following spring. (Most wineries would have this wrapped up within a matter of weeks following harvest.) She doesn't filter or fine the wines, nor does she practice battonage — the stirring of lees while a wine is aging in barrel, which can add oomph and body — meaning the wine gets its richness primarily from its raw materials. 'I pick on the riper side,' said Jones. 'The grapes should taste delicious. They should taste good. Like candy.' This sounds like an almost direct refutation of winemaker Raj Parr 's anti-ripeness maxim, now famous in industry circles: 'If you pick a grape off the vine and it tastes yummy, you've already missed it.' The Upper Barn Chardonnay is Sphaerics' flagship, and its most expensive at $140. The rest of the lineup consists of Overline ($65), a lighter expression from Carneros that's reminiscent of tangy yogurt, yellow peach and basil; and On Days and Nights ($80), from the Russian River Valley, which has flavors of fennel, toasted hazelnut and Meyer lemon. These are bold prices for Chardonnay, in line with high-end producers like Aubert, Peter Michael and Kistler. This year, Ball and Jones will add red wine to the mix after acquiring their estate vineyard. Located near the town of Occidental, the site has 13 acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. When the couple began scouting for properties, Ball pulled up Google Maps and asked Jones: 'Where in your dream would you want our vineyard to be?' She pointed to this particular area of the Sonoma Coast, where the fluffy Goldridge soils are known to be ideal for Burgundian grape varieties. Many of the wines that Jones had made at Aubert came from this area. When they saw a listing in that exact neighborhood that fit their budget, they felt that it was fate. They closed in May — and are legally prohibited from naming the vineyard's previous owner or which wineries bought its fruit. Coming up with a name for a winery that's not already trademarked is notoriously difficult, especially when 'your last names are not exciting,' said Jones. They chose Sphaerics, the title of the foundational text on the geometry of the sphere written by Theodosius of Bithynia in the 2nd or 1st century BC. It's partly a play on Ball's last name. It's also a nod to the shape of winemaking itself. 'Think of the most important objects that make wine,' Ball said: 'the shape of a grape, the shape of the earth, the shape of the moon.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ohio Senate budget alters the Governor's Merit Scholarship, ties funds to Senate Bill 1 compliance
College students graduating. Getty Images. The Ohio Senate's version of the state's two-year budget would reduce the number of students who would be eligible to receive the Governor's Merit Scholarship and it would come with strings attached. The Governor's Merit Scholarship currently awards the top 5% of each high school graduating class a $5,000 scholarship each year to attend an Ohio college or university. The Senate's version of the budget would reduce it to the top 2% of each high school starting with the 2027 fiscal year. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Senate also added a provision requiring students who receive the scholarship to stay in Ohio for three years immediately after graduation. Students attending graduate school would be an exception, but the expectation would remain that they would come back to Ohio for three years after graduate school, said Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon. 'Part of the reasoning for that is we want to keep our best and brightest in Ohio,' McColley said. 'It stands to reason that if we want to keep them in Ohio, we should actually require them to stay in Ohio post-graduation.' If a student who received the Governor's Merit Scholarship moved out of the state within those three years after graduating, they would have to pay back a portion of the aid they received, McColley said. 'We do want some teeth to that,' he said. Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said the three-year requirement would be almost impossible to implement. 'I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to police saying you must stay in Ohio for three years,' Huffman said. 'I suppose we can try to penalize them and all that.' Todd Jones, president and general counsel of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio (AICUO), said he is open to the state's three year retention after graduation. 'We're very sympathetic to the need of the state to help retain people in Ohio who are getting financial assistance,' he said. 'We wouldn't oppose it not being there, but it's certainly a judgment call for the legislature to make on that, and we're sympathetic to their desire to keep folks in Ohio.' The Senate's version of the budget eliminated provisions the Ohio House added regarding additional requirements for private colleges to continue to participate in the Governor's Merit Scholarship. The House had added language to the budget that would have required private colleges to comply with parts of Senate Bill 1 — Ohio's new higher education law that bans diversity and inclusion efforts and regulates classroom discussion, among other things. Jones was happy that was nixed from the budget. 'It's important that we retain students in Ohio and keep our best and brightest here,' Jones said. The Senate decided to take that language out of the budget after hearing concerns from many private universities, McColley said. The Governor's Merit Scholarship was enacted through the last state budget two years ago and 76% of the state's 6,250 eligible students from the class of 2024 accepted the scholarship. Eighty-seven percent of Ohio students accepted the scholarship in its second year and 11 rural counties had a 100% acceptance rate. The Senate's version of the budget trims how much money is allocated to the scholarships. It keeps it at $47 million for fiscal year 2026, but reduces it to $56.4 million in fiscal year 2027. Gov. Mike DeWine's and the House's version of the budget allocated $70 million for fiscal year 2027. The Senate's version of the budget ties a portion of the State Share of Instruction to compliance with Senate Bill 1. 'We wanted to make sure that everybody at the university level was following through with the conditions and regulations in Senate Bill 1,' said Ohio Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland. 'We have the ability to decide how we're going to fund things. … If they are viewed as in compliance, nothing will be withheld from their SSI share, which would be their normal proportion of the SSI dollars.' Huffman said he supports tying a portion of the State Share of Instruction to compliance with S.B. 1. 'If the universities aren't going to apply state law then there needs to be some incentive to make sure that they do,' he said. House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, is against tying State Share of Instruction to compliance with S.B. 1. 'I firmly oppose S.B. 1, so tying more compliance to S.B. 1, which I think is an extremely flawed piece of legislation, obviously we oppose that portion,' she said. Senate Minority Leader Nickie J. Antonio, D-Lakewood, said she thinks the provision is outrageous. 'It's also following the pattern that we're seeing at the national level of intimidation and bullying, frankly, telling people that if you don't comply with what we say, then we'll just punish you and we'll withhold money,' she said. Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
More former Indiana players allege sexual misconduct by physician
Field Level Media More than 15 former Indiana men's basketball players allege improper sexual conduct by a former team physician, and they claim that university officials — including the late coach Bobby Knight — knew of the doctor's behavior. Two former Hoosiers sued the school last fall, but the number of complainants has grown to five with another 10 expecting to also pursue litigation, according to ESPN on Tuesday. In the existing lawsuit, former players allege that Dr. Bradford Bomba, who died last month at the age of 89, regularly performed rectal exams on male athletes during physicals despite the fact that medical guidance did not recommend them for college-age men. The lawsuit argued that this amounted to sexual misconduct, and it claimed university officials were aware of this behavior, yet failed to stop it. The players said that they raised complaints, with some even requesting a different physician. However, the athletes alleged that Knight, who died in 2023, and head athletic trainer Tim Garl instructed players to continue seeing Bomba. Garl, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, was the head athletic trainer from 1981 until this year, when Indiana said it would not renew his contract. Garl's attorneys, emphasizing that the trainer did not supervise Bomba, noted that rectal exams were a normal part of a physical. During his initial deposition a year ago, Bomba refused to answer 45 questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Last month, Indiana commissioned an investigation that found Bomba's digital rectal exams were performed in a 'clinically appropriate manner,' adding that there was 'no evidence to suggest that Dr. Bomba achieved sexual gratification.' However, Michelle Simpson Tuegel — representing the group of 10 players who are preparing to file suit — said two of her clients contradict that finding. One individual said Bomba 'fondled his genitalia' during a physical. Some medical experts indicated that it was uncommon for a physician to perform a rectal exam without any concerning history or symptoms. These procedures are generally used to screen for prostate and other cancers. In the 1990s, the American Cancer Society recommended them for men who were 50 and older. An Indiana University spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.
