Rate increases at subsidiaries, including Alabama Power -- plus "creative accounting" -- are chief drivers of Southern Company's racketeering enterprise

Plant Vogtle (Nuclear News)

 

Rate increases at Alabama Power and other subsidiaries, along with "creative accounting," are driving Southern Company's long-running racketeering enterprise, according to lawsuits filed in Georgia state court. That is from a report today at banbalch.com, which operates under the CDLU public charity and advocacy group. K.B. Forbes, CEO of the CDLU, writes under the headline"RICO Enterprise Lied and Bribed! Southern Company’s “Creative Accounting” at Vogtle Exposed":

Last year, the Alabama Public Service Commission rubber-stamped three rate increases at Alabama Power generating an estimated $400 million a year in additional revenue.

The most-profitable subsidiary of Southern Company, Alabama Power, has been helping cover the enormous billion-dollar cost overruns at both the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant and the boondoggle Kemper Plant in Mississippi.

But Alabama Power is not alone.

Another Southern Company subsidiary, Georgia Power obtained a $1.8-billion rate increase on December 20, 2022.

Causing outrage, the rate increases come as Southern Company generated almost $30 billion in revenue in 2022, seeing revenues increase by 26 percent in a year.

Net income at Southern Company rose to $3.5 billion in 2022, a 47 percent increase as compared to 2021.

Forbes calls this a curious case of a corporation "pouring in billion-dollar profits while suffering billion-dollar cost overruns." How does such magical manipulation of numbers happen? Lawsuits against Georgia Power by two co-owners of Plant Vogtle -- Oglethorpe Power Corporation and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia   (MEAG) help explain it, writes Forbes:

Funneling millions to not-for-profit entities or political action committees, giving blatant bribes campaign contributions directly or indirectly to public service commissioners or key politicians, hiring political-smear artists, and contracting powerful government insiders, the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) enterprise has successfully continued to operate without repercussions by easily targeting or silencing perceived enemies or critics.

Until now.

Oglethorpe Power, one of three minority operators of the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant, filed a devastating civil lawsuit last June and outlined some of the horrific shenanigans and creative accounting that Southern Company’s subsidiary, Georgia Power, has engaged in, to lie about Vogtle cost overruns.

Ogelthorpe states:

Ignoring all prior cost forecasts for Vogtle Units 3 and 4, including the cost forecast of $17.1 billion that nearly brought the project to an end and was the reason the co-owners entered into the Co-Owner Term Sheet and Global Amendments, Georgia Power apparently takes the position that the term “VCM 19 Forecast,” which is defined as “the total project cost of which GPC’s share is $8.4 billion,” contains a hidden math formula. According to Georgia Power, one is to divide $8.4 billion by Georgia Power’s Ownership Interest (45.7%) to produce a result of $18.38 billion, and that number – which has never been a cost forecast for the project and has never been discussed by the parties – rather than $17.1 billion, should be viewed as the total project cost at the time of VCM 19. Georgia Power’s theory, while creative, is entirely inconsistent with Georgia Power’s own presentation of the relevant numbers at the time the co-owners entered into the Co-Owner Term Sheet and Global Amendments.

Using creative accounting to turn $17.1 billion into $18.38 billion is truly absurd.

Should any of this be a surprise? No, says Forbes:

Southern Company, using embattled law firm Balch & Bingham, dishonestly targeted an innocent father of four.

Southern Company, using the obscure political consulting firm Matrix, LLC, deceptively targeted and terrorized a Hispanic family.

Southern Company deviously paid for a website falsely calling an attorney a rapist.

The deception is coming home to bite Southern Company.

The math is simple and exposes the absurdity of the RICO enterprise.

The cost overruns at Vogtle are in the billions. Southern Company obtained rate increases in the billions, sticking it to the ratepayers. All the while, Southern Company was making billions in revenue, net income, and profits.