By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — FirstEnergy has conceded possible West Virginia ratepayer effects from what is believed to be the largest bribery scheme in Ohio history.
In a filing FirstEnergy’s West Virginia utilities Mon Power and Potomac Edison submitted Dec. 22 in a case seeking a $172.7 million rate increase, FirstEnergy Assistant Controller Tracy Ashton said it’s possible that Ohio House Bill 6 costs could have applied to the companies’ vegetation management and mercury and air toxic standard projects.
Ohio House Bill 6 of 2019 was a billion-dollar bailout of FirstEnergy nuclear plants. A federal jury found a former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and a former Ohio Republican Party chairman guilty of participating in a racketeering conspiracy to pass the measure.
Ashton had testified in June that no HB 6-related costs were passed through to any West Virginia surcharge or base rates.
But Ashton’s latest testimony says that through a review of HB 6 costs and nonrecoverable and nonoperating costs allocated to Mon Power and Potomac Edison since their last base rate case in 2014, FirstEnergy estimated roughly $53,000 in capitalized costs may have been applied to vegetation management and mercury and air toxics standard projects.