CHICAGO – House Speaker Michael Madigan pitched a $2.35 billion bailout of Commonwealth Edison’s nuclear power plants as a green energy bill, but ComEd’s bribery confession shows green currency may have meant more to him.
To please Madigan, ComEd says it paid his friends $1,324,500 as phony subcontractors and retained a law firm it didn’t need.
ComEd accepted criminal responsibility at U.S. district court on July 17, and agreed to pay a $200 million penalty that it may not deduct on its taxes.
U.S. Attorney John Lausch agreed to defer prosecution for three years.
He attached a statement of facts about Madigan’s actions from 2011 to last year, and ComEd pledged never to contradict it.
Madigan has told reporters he didn’t know about the events ComEd described.
He also continues to block a bill that would repeal the nuclear bailout.
Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) introduced the bill in January but it hasn’t come out of the House rules committee.
“The Speaker controls the process,” Batinick said on July 21. “You’ve got a guy in a scandal who has oversight of the scandal.”
“If he didn’t know what went on, he should resign out of incompetence. If people say he shouldn’t resign, I wonder where their moral compass is.”
ComEd has adjusted its compass on political action.
From 2012 through last year, it gave Illinois candidates about $111,000 a year.
Through June 30 this year, it made two contributions worth $750.
ComEd’s statement connected the original bribery to passage of the Energy Infrastructure and Modernization Act in 2011.
It stated that the act provided a process for determining rates more reliably, that the act helped improve ComEd’s financial stability and that ComEd agreed to retain a law firm for at least 850 hours a year.
ComEd reduced the hours at renewal.
Prior to the legislative session in 2016, ComEd issued a statement seeking state support for nuclear plants near Clinton and Rock Island.
ComEd warned of shutdowns, claiming the plants lost $800 million in six years.
The General Assembly proceeded to raise $235 million a year for ten years to modernize Com Ed’s nuclear plants near Clinton and Rock Island.
Rather than appropriate the subsidy, legislators taxed all electric customers in Illinois and arranged a carbon credit system favoring nuclear energy.
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the bill as the Future Energy Jobs Act, and environmental groups celebrated nationwide.
Opponents sought relief at U.S. district court, claiming the asserted goal of environmental protection was a pretext for the bailout.
District Judge James Shadid dismissed their complaint in 2017, finding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could address any market distortion.
Shadid wrote that while the market for credits might affect the wholesale energy market, it was an incidental burden on the channels of interstate commerce.
He wrote that any harm to power generators in other states competing against subsidized participants was not clearly excessive when balanced against weighty and traditional areas of permissible state regulation.
Seventh Circuit appellate judges affirmed Shadid in 2018, defining the credits as a cross subsidy flowing from carbon plants to carbon free competitors.
Last year, according to ComEd’s statement, its board members filled a vacancy with an associate of Madigan.
The statement indicated that no one at ComEd recruited the person and ComEd didn’t interview other candidates.
The statement also described an internship program ComEd started, primarily for students from Madigan’s ward on his recommendation.