We’re nearing the end of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) hearing, and the arguments against FirstEnergy’s $3 billion bailout keep mounting. The utility giant’s “experts” have already proven themselves to be inaccurate. This coming week, they will continue to try to justify the bailout with new testimony, essentially arguing, “What I meant to say was...”

In the meantime, please check out our newest blog post highlighting FirstEnergy’s Consistency – or Lack Thereof. The blog uses the utility’s own words from a few years ago to show the hypocrisy of its current positions.

We’ve noted how FirstEnergy is using the same playbook it employed a few years ago in West Virginia, and a new report from Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis details the uncanny similarities. Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out well for West Virginians’ health or wallets.

You can always visit EDF’s FirstEnergy website for our newsletter archive and links to the latest news about FirstEnergy’s bailout.

FirstEnergy = Solar Energy’s Most Wanted

If you google ‘solar energy’ you will find numerous recent articles with headlines like “The astounding plummeting cost of utility-solar" and “Wind and solar keep getting cheaper and cheaper.” But despite the dramatic decline in prices, not to mention the public health benefits that go along with solar, some people just don’t want you – or anyone else for that matter – to have it.

A new report from Environment America calls out 12 utilities and fossil fuel interest groups who have been stealthily working behind the scenes to thwart solar energy’s growth. Guess who was included in the roundup? That’s right: FirstEnergy, clean energy’s public enemy #1. The report details numerous steps the utility has taken to halt any competition from price-competitive solar energy, like leading the campaign to “freeze” Ohio’s highly-successful standards for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

With regards to paying people for the solar energy they generate for their own homes, the report notes, “The PUCO has had to deny at least three appeals from FirstEnergy to reduce the value of [solar] electricity fed back into the grid.” At least three. FirstEnergy is nothing if not persistent in its war against clean energy progress.

We don’t know if FirstEnergy executives watch The Simpsons, but Mr. Burns would be proud.

FirstEnergy’s Future Looked Rosy…in the Past

It’s hard to believe it was less than five years ago that FirstEnergy was sitting pretty and flaunting it. But that’s the reason Mad Money host Jim Cramer invited FirstEnergy's then-CEO, Tony Alexander, on the show in 2011 to discuss how the utility would be able to easily meet new environmental regulations and likely come out on top. It was the perfect opportunity for the CEO to brag about the utility’s astute ability to “look at where the future seemed to be going.”

He even declared confidently: “We are in a very good position from a generation fleet standpoint to take advantage of what may occur in the future.”

The FirstEnergy of today is far from “taking advantage” of what’s happening, unless we’re referring to taking advantage of its customers.

Instead, we find a utility saddled with bad business decisions in the form of coal investments that can’t keep up in the marketplace. In the interview, Alexander said he’d “like to see the economy come back [and] the markets improve,” presumably so FirstEnergy could make bank. But now that both of those things have happened, the utility is pleading for the PUCO’s help to keep its operations alive.

The Mad Money segment was labeled as talking with the FirstEnergy CEO about “Powering its Business and America.” It seems the utility is struggling to do either these days.

PUCO Staff Steady as a Rock

You may recall how, back in September, the PUCO staff made a recommendation to the five people who will decide the fate of FirstEnergy’s proposal: Reject it. They said the plan, as proposed, should be denied.

Now AEP Ohio, another large utility, has a similar bailout deal in front of the PUCO. AEP might have thought it could slip by with a slightly smaller request, but the PUCO staff seems to recognize bad policy when they see it. This month, AEP’s plan got the exact same rejection recommendation.

Hats off to the PUCO staff for standing up to big power players for the sake of Ohioans. Now we wait to see if the commission takes the same smart stance.