Records show Rep. Bill Seitz, the third-ranking Republican in the Ohio House, worked with FirstEnergy to draft a nuclear power plant bailout bill that’s now the subject of a federal subpoena.
As part of the federal racketeering case against the now-former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and several associates, the FBI subpoenaed the Ohio House in July for records related to four bills. The bills, introduced between 2017 and 2019, all aimed to bail out nuclear plants owned by a subsidiary of FirstEnergy (FirstEnergy Solutions or FES) that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, and emerged this February as a separate new company called Energy Harbor.
The last of those bills, House Bill 6, passed last year and is now at the center of the federal case against Householder and four others, who are charged with secretly using $60 million from FirstEnergy to support the bill that will force $1 billion in subsidies for the nuclear plants on ratepayers.
Seitz, who has served as the House Majority Floor Leader since June of 2017, remains a staunch defender of HB 6. He’s refused to step down from his leadership position despite a request to do so from the new speaker Bob Cupp, and is said to be considering a run for the speakership next year.
Seitz worked with a FirstEnergy lobbyist to draft Zero Emissions Nuclear legislation
“Those who say that we should all go because we’re guilty by association with Householder are probably auditioning for the role of (Sen.) Joe McCarthy in the next Red Scare movie or perhaps auditioning for a role in the next Salem Witch Trial movie because guilt by association is no kind of standard by which to punish people who had nothing to do with any of this alleged scandal.”
Emails and other records obtained via a public records request filed by the Energy and Policy Institute show that when Seitz previously served as chair of both the Ohio House Majority Policy Caucus and Public Utilities Committee in early 2017, he worked closely with a lobbyist from FirstEnergy on drafting what would become House Bill 178. The failed bill, which is now a subject of the federal subpoena targeting the Ohio House, sought to establish a Zero Emissions Nuclear (ZEN) program to subsidize the same FirstEnergy nuclear plants later subsidized by HB 6.
“Should Ohio move forward with approving the ZEN at its current rate and the plants run very reliably, that’s worth about $300 million a year that would flow to those two nuclear units,” Charles Jones, the CEO of FirstEnergy, said on an earnings call that year.
When the ZEN bill was finally formally introduced in April of 2017, another state representative named Anthony Devitis was listed as the bill’s sponsor in the House. Eklund sponsored a Senate companion bill, SB 128.
Eklund defended HB 6 last week at an Ohio Senate hearing on new legislation to repeal the 2019 law.
Like the later HB 6, the 2017 ZEN bill ostensibly sought to subsidize the nuclear plants due to their zero-emissions benefits, even as FirstEnergy and Seitz attacked renewables that produce no emissions when they generate electricity.
Seitz paved the way for HB 6’s coal subsidies and clean energy standards rollback with other earlier bills sought by AEP, Duke Energy, and Murray Energy
Seitz also worked with lobbyists at American Electric Power in 2017 to draft another bill, HB 239, that would have delivered over $250 million in subsidies to two-coal fired power plants operated by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC), which today counts AEP, Duke Energy, Dayton Power & Light, and Energy Harbor among its equity owners.
When HB 239 was introduced, two other state representatives were listed as the sponsors. Lobbyists for AEP and Duke Energy provided talk points and draft testimony.
The federal criminal complaint filed in the Householder case clearly implicates FirstEnergy, AEP, and Murray Energy as all having provided the money that ultimately went toward bankrolling the $60 million fund at the core of the alleged racketeering scheme. Prosecutors have not formally named or charged any of the companies in the case, but they have subpoenaed FirstEnergy.
Seitz owns stock in one utility that benefited from HB 6, and counts beneficiaries among his top donors
While Seitz was busy working with FirstEnergy on the draft 2017 ZEN bill, a group called Generation Now Inc. was incorporated in Delaware. Generation Now is now another defendant in the federal racketeering case against Householder, and has connections to Dinsmore & Shohl. The 501(c)(4) group allegedly secretly used millions of dollars from FirstEnergy to help elect Householder as House Speaker, provide advertising support to legislators backing HB 6, and then defend the bill against a ballot initiative effort to repeal it.
Eric Lycan, the Kentucky-based treasurer for Generation Now, was an attorney at Dinsmore & Shohl until April 2019. FirstEnergy started to funnel money into Generation Now in March 2017, when Seitz was still working with the utility on drafting the first ZEN bill.
After HB 178 failed to move forward, Seitz cosponsored a new ZEN bill, House Bill 381, that Generation Now supported. This bill failed too and is now a subject of the federal subpoena.
Dinsmore & Shohl is now representing Murray Energy in its bankruptcy case.
In March, Seitz told the Energy News Network that he was “pleased” that some of his colleagues at Dinsmore & Shohl supported HB 6, but said it would be “ridiculous” to imply anything inappropriate about his support for HB 6 because of his firm’s connections to the bill.
“My support for the elements of HB 6 (end the mandates, support OVEC, support nuclear) predates HB 6 through legislation I co-sponsored in the last general assembly,” Seitz said.
Mention that the ZEN program would force consumers to compensate FirstEnergy for “marketplace losses” was removed from an internal Ohio House policy paper
“Credits paid for by FirstEnergy customers on top of normal operational costs to compensate marketplace losses,” a sub-bullet point said below.
The document was marked with notes in what appears to be Seitz’s handwriting and markups, with the words “compensate marketplace losses” replaced with “recognize zero carbon emissions environmental benefits of nuclear power.” The handwriting on the document is similar to the writing on other records that bear Seitz’s name.
A conversation about bailouts with the Nuclear Energy Institute at a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council
Seitz is a longtime board member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the fossil fuel and utility industry-backed source of model bills attacking state clean energy policies around the country.
After ALEC’s 2017 Spring Task Force Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, Seitz received an email from Michael McGarey, senior advisor on state and local affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
“Good to see you at ALEC,” the email’s subject line read.
“I enjoyed our conversation last week and I appreciated your insights on our efforts to preserve reliable, zero-carbon baseload power in Ohio,” wrote McGarey.
A report by ALEC that year pointed to a “nuclear renaissance” in state policymaking, and pointed to Ohio’s ZEN legislation as one example.