It was a rather dull Christmas holiday. It was a challenge to find how many different ways to work those turkey leftovers into meals for my family. But I managed to get it done. But it’s the last time I’m going to buy a twenty-pound turkey. All that did was challenge my creativity.
But a greater challenge is trying to figure out whatever nonsense is going on at Louisiana Public Service Commission in the office of Commissioner Craig Greene. For sometime now we have been getting reports that this Commissioner has been creating a questionable unholy alliance with a subcorporation of NextEra Energy via Florida Power and Light via NextEra Energy Marketing, in their effort to infiltrate the Louisiana electricity industry in their quest to develop the proven costly open market for electricity that seems to be directed on swiping the electricity sales of all industrial customers in Louisiana. About half of all electricity in Louisiana is sold to industrial customers. We are informed that if the state went down that path, the overhead costs of the states system, that is currently shared by all customers, would have the lion share fall on residential and commercial customers.
Challenging, ain’t it! So, the world’s largest electricity company, NextEra Energy, through its minion subs wants to disrupt the Louisiana system. But get this, NextEra Energy has built a wall around the state of Florida and prohibits any other electricity company from doing the same there. The sauce for the goose in Florida is only sauce for their own goose.
A cursory look at NextEra Energy would give most reasonable people pause before engaging in any alliance with that company. Let me share a few of the choice character references.
From Jan. 17, 2024, Bloomberg Law
“NextEra Energy Says Judge Should Toss ‘Ghost Candidates’ Lawsuit”
by Ben Miller
- Shareholders alleged ‘political misconduct’ led to stock drop
Shareholders alleged in May that world’s largest utility company engaged in “political misconduct,” employing a network of nonprofits to secretly channel funds to “ghost candidates” in the 2020 election cycle. The legal violations stemming from that misconduct and news coverage of it exposed the company and a local subsidiary to reputational risks, which in turn harmed investors, the complaint says.
Ghost candidates you say?! ghost candidates” are unaffiliated independent candidates with mysterious sources of money (since connected to FPL consultants), who siphoned votes away from candidates FPL did not support.
Apparently, nextera had no problem trying to influence elections in Florida by funneling money to questionable nonprofits to effect elections against candidates that were not friendly to them. Their then President Mr Silagy sent an email as follows:
Silagy was very clear about the candidates he didn’t like: In a 2019 email to two FPL executives, Silagy wrote the following about state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez: “I want you to make his life a living hell . . . seriously.” The state senator went on to lose re-election by a handful of votes.
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/columns/more-voices/2023/02/05/floridians-should-applaud-silagys-exit-from-florida-power-light/69863999007/
NextEra Energy, Inc., the parent company of Florida Power & Light, has also violated federal securities laws by making “materially false and misleading statements” related to the company’s political spending.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article283157618.html
NextEra, Florida utilities closely aligned with election fraud suspect Frank Artiles
Ok, so what’s the point? NextEra bad. Yes. And I didn’t even get to the allegations of them paying a prostitute to make false allegations against a targeted candidate. By the way, she later recanted and spilled the beans.
So here we are at this point. Who in their right mind would politically ally themselves to NextEra? Well that would be Craig Greene. And this is how. Greene’s former executive assistant Bo Staples was hired by NextEra as senior Director of regulatory and political affairs in Louisiana. NextEra is contracted with the southern strategy group in Baton Rouge through their partner, Brad Mittendorf. Mittendorf is evidently never far from Greene and the reputed Svengali of Greene and the setup. Greene’s most recent executive assistant, David Zito, who departed the commission in November 2023, has been hired by a company called Gabel Associates as a “Senior Associate” and reputed to be working on utility issues of NextEra co-op customers in Louisiana. And a former employee of the southern strategy group, Grayson Walls, is now the executive assistant for Craig Greene. Brad Mittendorf’s son has been hired by NextEra.
That’s quite a list of Greene’s people associated in some way with NextEra. Now let’s look at the other commissioners and who they have associated with NextEra. Oh, that would be none of them. Only Greene, who oddly enough fights very hard for NextEra related issues. Go figure.
Seems to me that Craig Greene has his own personal twenty-pound political turkey to deal with now. He must feel like Custer at little big horn. Surrounded by agents a la NextEra. I wonder what happens if he doesn’t do their bidding? He best challenge his self imposed genius creativity for his twenty-pound political turkey or just pack his desk and give up on running for re-election in October/November.
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