Ohio's next HB-6 is already here
Fresh off record profits despite paying $19 million to end a probe into its role in HB-6, AEP has power players aligned for a $100 million nuclear payoff with further costs dumped on consumers.
It’s been a little under seven years since Governor Mike DeWine signed HB-6, the largest bribery scheme (that we know about), into law.
Since then, a shitbag lobbyist and corrupt PUCO chairman died by suicide. Two other shitbag lobbyists worked off their sentences, with one opening a Diplo-backed bar in Florida.
Former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges rejected a six-month sentence as a plea bargain and took a five-year sentence on his chin.
Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is 2.5 years into a 20-year sentence at FCI Elkton.
Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling are currently on trial in Akron, with their former employers bankrolling the defense of the disgraced executives for some reason.
If only one of the best mayors in American history could see how far we’ve fallen from his advisement:
"I believe in municipal ownership of waterworks, of parks, of schools. I believe in the municipal ownership of these monopolies because if you do not own them, they, in turn, will own you.
“They will rule your politics, corrupt your institutions and finally destroy your liberties."
Cleveland mayor Tom L. Johnson, [1901]
This is Ohio, where the Republican junta has leveraged its power through ill-gotten legislative supermajorities through the dark art of gerrymandering.
Nothing was passed to prevent the next HB-6 from happening again, which meant it was only a matter of time before another utility company saw an opportunity to extort its customers.
It’s no surprise that company is American Electric Power (AEP), which, coincidentally enough, paid $19 million to end an SEC probe into its role in the largest bribery scheme in Ohio history (that we know about) in Nov. 2024.
A year later, AEP posted record quarterly profits.
In January, AEP attempted to bamboozle consumers with further rate hikes while simultaneously shaking down local and state governments by crying over its allegedly dilapidated headquarters in downtown Columbus.
And now, with corporations colonizing Ohio farmland with energy-sucking data centers, AEP is looking to get into the nuclear energy field with a bill ghostwritten by a company lobbyist.
From Morgan Trau of Ohio Capital Journal:
Under the draft, nuclear plants could be built on brownfields and former coal mine sites. The facilities would also get a streamlined regulatory approval process.
The legislation also declares nuclear energy as a priority for the state.
“Nuclear power is one of the greenest, most efficient forms of power,” Mathews claimed, noting that it doesn’t have the same emissions that fossil fuels do.
The Rooster is pro-nuclear, but the irony of fossil fuel emissions becoming a problem in the eyes of a Republican legislator only when pitching corporate ownership of another utility isn’t lost on me.
I caught Rep. Matthews after a JCARR meeting on March 2 to put him on notice about the suspected shenanigans:
Mathews is no fool despite his steadfast refusal to remove the profit motive from public utilities. Unfortunately, he’s equally ambitious, and doing utility companies’ bidding in Ohio is a surefire way to rise through the Republican ranks.
Just look at what sucking that teat did for Ohio’s junior Senator, Jon Husted, who’s listed as “State Official #2” in HB-6 charging documents and won’t ever see the inside of a jail cell thanks to the suicide of former PUCO chairman Sam “The Randazzler” Randazzo.
Same for Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima), who was deemed “transactional” by FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine, whose company later funneled $300K in dark money to the then-State Senator who shepherded HB-6 through Ohio’s most beautiful retirement home.
But Mathews, allowing AEP to draft the legislation before enduring what’s sure to be a grueling review by the House Republican Caucus, is only one part of AEP’s plan.
The other, less public prong will be operated by Josh Rubin, founder of the super-lobbying firm the CJR Group and, somehow, chairman of the JobsOhio Board of Directors.
