Critics: New FirstEnergy ‘bailout’ plan ‘would make Houdini blush’

Crews install new LED lighting in the sign at FirstEnergy's Akron headquarters.As reported by Kathiann M. Kowalski at Midwest Energy News, FirstEnergy's hail Mary pass to try to resurrect its billion dollar bailout approved by PUCO but rejected (for now) by FERC has generated fierce push back by critics and opponents.

The article quotes the State of Ohio Consumers' Counsel:

“This continuing saga of the FirstEnergy bailout remains a great risk for Ohioans' electric bills and, nearly two years into the state process, an imposition on government regulation that the public funds,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston. “Enough is enough.‎"

The Electric Power Supply Association is also quoted:

“If anything, this new unprecedented scheme is worse,” said John Shelk, president of the Electric Power Supply Association. “It shows what we have said all along. This isn’t about protecting customers and retail rate stability, but about bailing out shareholders and management in the face of a looming credit downgrade.”

In his opinion, the “escape attempt” from FERC’s order requiring scrutiny of the power purchase agreement “would make even Houdini blush.” (emphasis added)

Environmental groups, including Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, and Earthjustice, also oppose FirstEnergy's bailout attempt.

“FirstEnergy’s latest gambit underscores that its bailout proposal has nothing to do with protecting customers or preserving Ohio generation, and everything to do with propping up corporate profits,” said Shannon Fisk of Earthjustice on behalf of the Sierra Club

“We urge PUCO to reject FirstEnergy’s attempt to evade federal review of an illegal bailout that FirstEnergy acknowledges would cost customers at least $363 million in the first 31 months alone,” Fisk added.

In addition to propping up noncompetitive, 50-year old FirstEnergy coal burners, like Sammis and at OVEC (Ohio Valley Electric Cooperative, including units that historically electrified uranium enrichment facilities in the Ohio River Valley), the $3.9 to more than $5 billion bailout, over eight years, would also go towards propping up the problem-plagued, age-degraded FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo. 

Since 2010, Beyond Nuclear has co-led an environmental coalition opposed to the 20-year (2017-2037) license extension at Davis-Besse. Beyond Nuclear et al.'s objection to high-level radioactive waste generation at Davis-Besse is still before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Toledo attorney Terry Lodge serves as legal counsel for the coalition opposing the license extension. D.C. attorney Diane Curran, and Atlanta attorney Mindy Goldstein, serve as Beyond Nuclear's legal counsel in the Nuclear Waste Confidence appeal; Natural Resource Defense Council's Geoff Fettus presented oral arguments at the D.C. Circuit, on behalf of the environmental coalition, on Feb. 22, 2016.