The Florida Public Service Commission rejected the request of four state lawmakers to audit any possible ties Florida Power & Light Co. had to allegations of meddling in state elections.
A group of Democratic state representatives had requested the audit following news reports by the Orlando Sentinel and Florida Times-Union on connections between the NextEra Energy Inc. utility subsidiary and a political nonprofit that donated "millions of dollars" to three "spoiler" or "ghost" candidates in 2020 to "siphon away votes" from Democratic candidates, the lawmakers said in a Jan. 5 letter to the PSC requesting the audit. FPL has denied any wrongdoing.
State regulators rebuffed lawmakers' request Jan. 6, saying the utility had recently undergone an audit as part of its 2021 rate case proceeding.
"These audits are precisely focused on the heart of your concerns — to detect any use of ratepayer funds that do not reasonably relate to the provision of service by a regulated utility company in Florida," PSC Chairman Andrew Giles Fay wrote in a letter to the lawmakers. "The audit produced no evidence that Florida Power & Light used or was intending to use ratepayer funds for the private benefit of the company's lobbying, campaigning and/or marketing affairs."
The lawmakers — Angie Nixon, Anna Eskamani, Carlos Guillermo Smith and Travaris McCurdy — alleged that the "Grow United" nonprofit was among several front groups set up by political consultants working for the utility and that FPL had "given millions of dollars to those groups, which then pass the money around in an apparent effort to hide the fact that FPL is behind it," the lawmakers wrote.
"This reporting has raised significant questions around the potential of ratepayer funds being used to not only influence elections but to undermine democracy through fake candidate schemes, astroturfing and attempted bribes," lawmakers wrote.
Florida Power & Light spokesperson Chris McGrath denied the allegations. "As the PSC explained in their follow-up letter, FPL filed more than 100,000 pages of documents with the Florida Public Service Commission as part of its 2021 rate case filing," McGrath said in an email Jan. 12. "We have never used FPL customer dollars to participate in the political process or lobby on our company's behalf, and any accusation that claims this is uninformed and false. As we have clearly stated on numerous occasions, any report or suggestion that we had involvement in, financially supported or directed others to support any 'ghost' candidates during the 2020 election cycle is false. We have found no evidence of any wrongdoing by our company or our employees."
The lawmakers renewed their request for a detailed audit of FPL's spending in a second letter dated Jan. 10.
"It is in the best interest of Floridians to provide further transparency and answer outstanding questions about FPL's political spending," the lawmakers wrote, saying the PSC's "rate case proceedings and analysis may not have provided adequate visibility."