The Big Fossil Fuel Bailout
A Matter of Degrees
Dr. Leah Stokes, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson
4.8 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2020
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In July, the FBI charged Larry Householder, Ohio's Republican Speaker of the House, with a conspiracy to pass a $1.5 billion bailout in return for $61 million in dark money. The racketeering was allegedly orchestrated by Householder and the utility FirstEnergy to kill Ohio's renewable energy law and prop up aging coal and nuclear power plants.
What's happening in Ohio is part of a broader story playing out under the Trump Administration. Fossil-fuel companies like FirstEnergy have used their ties to the Trump regime to push massive bailouts for dirty energy. And the pandemic was the perfect opportunity for the industry to grab more money.
In this episode, we'll detail how these companies are raking in billions of government dollars in the wake of the $2 trillion covid stimulus package -- while millions of Americans struggle financially from the pandemic.
Featured in this episode: Neil Waggoner, Antonia Juhasz, Alexis Goldstein, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and Tamara Toles O'Laughlin.
Don't forget to read the climate change voter's guide before casting your ballot.
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We start this week with an FBI arrest. |
| 0:04.5 | Woo, you've got me hooked. |
| 0:06.4 | Who is it? |
| 0:07.5 | One of the most powerful people in Ohio. |
| 0:10.2 | We're today to announce the arrest of Larry Householder, |
| 0:14.4 | a Speaker of the House of the State of Ohio, |
| 0:16.6 | and four other defendants for racketeering |
| 0:19.2 | in relation to what is likely the largest |
| 0:22.5 | bribery money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people, the state of Ohio. |
| 0:28.8 | That's a U.S. attorney leveling some very serious charges against a very powerful Republican |
| 0:35.1 | politician from Ohio, Larry Householder. And that happened back in July. |
| 0:40.8 | The conspiracy was to pass and maintain a $1.5 billion bailout and return for $61 million |
| 0:50.5 | in dark money that were used for various things. |
| 0:55.9 | Since the late 90s, householder has been in office in Ohio, and he's used his elected |
| 1:01.5 | position for corrupt ends. |
| 1:03.6 | He's violated campaign finance laws, and back in 2004, he was already under investigation |
| 1:09.3 | by the FBI for alleged money laundering. |
| 1:12.5 | But this time, the charges are next level. |
| 1:15.4 | The FBI said they'd never seen a political bribery plot like this in Ohio's history. |
| 1:21.1 | It was the kind of racketeering scheme we normally think would be created by mobsters, not politicians. |
| 1:27.3 | An FBI agent actually made that comparison himself. |
| 1:30.9 | This is the first time racketeering charge has been used on a public official in the Southern |
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