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COLUMBUS -- "While serving as Ohio’s top utilities regulator, former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo worked to amend a controversial nuclear bailout bill to hurt renewable energy projects while helping a former client that had just lost a major court case, recently released emails show.

Records released by the Ohio House last month show Randazzo in emails to House staff suggested wording revisions to an early version of House Bill 6, which now is at the center of a federal corruption probe, along with other minor later changes to the bill language.

But they also show Randazzo helped develop new language for the bill to make it harder for wind energy projects to get exceptions to 'setback' rules requiring a certain amount of distance between windmills and adjoining properties. The language, drafted as an amendment that didn’t make it into the final bill, would have benefitted Randazzo’s former client, a group of Huron County property owners who were fighting state approval for a wind farm. Randazzo had filed the case with the Ohio Supreme Court, and had withdrawn from the case six months before when Gov. Mike DeWine hired him as Ohio’s top utility regulator.

Renewable energy advocates, who long have criticized Randazzo, say his involvement with House Bill 6 was inappropriate, given his role approving energy projects and setting utility rates. They’ve also questioned his impartiality in light of FirstEnergy’s disclosure that Akron power company paid $4 million to someone matching Randazzo’s description shortly before DeWine hired him. Randazzo as PUCO chairman subsequently issued rulings that benefitted FirstEnergy, including one in November 2019 that rescinded a requirement that FirstEnergy undergo a comprehensive review of its electricity rates in 2024. The company was a driving force behind House Bill 6, which otherwise bailed out two Ohio nuclear plants owned by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary."

-- Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com

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