俄亥俄州众议院拉里（Larry）住户[R]和包括州共和党前主席在内的四个政治盟友的议长被捕，并被指控接受一家被确认为核能提供者FirstEnergy Corp的公司的贿赂。

The company and its affiliates paid more than $60 million to a 501(c)(4) entity called Generation Now that Householder, his aide Jeffrey Longstreth, lobbyist Neil Clark, lobbyist and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges and political consultant Juan Cespedes are alleged to have controlled. Generation Now was also charged as part of the prosecution.

The group used regular payments from late 2016 to the present of up to $250,000, detailed in the criminal complaint with payment schedules coming in to Generation Now, for everything from running local house campaigns that resulted in Householder winning the speakership in 2019 to repairs to his Perry County farm.

The criminal information released July 21 alleges that Householder and his allies then passed HB 6 in 2019, a bill supported by Ohio's Republican-controlled House and Senate and signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine [R] last July. The legislation included ratepayer subsidies to FirstEnergy to keep it from closing its Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants.

The firm's bailout totaled a customer-paid $1.1 billion subsidy for the two nuclear power plants, to be paid in increments of $150 million a year starting in 2021 through 2027.

The law also provided $50 million a year in new customer-paid subsidies to the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., which operates two large coal-burning power plants.

FirstEnergy Corp.是两种核电站的原始运营商，直到其子公司FirstEnergy Solutions申请破产。多亏了这项救助，FirstEnergy Solutions在破产中幸存下来，并将其更名为能源港，该港口现在独立于FirstEnergy Corp。

Shocked and Appalled

联邦调查局辛辛那提（FBI Cincinnati）在7月21日的新闻发布会上宣布逮捕，“所有形式的公共腐败都是不可接受的。”“当涉嫌腐败达到我们州政府的最高水平时，俄亥俄州的公民应该震惊和震惊。”

户主的农场也搜索了联邦调查局the morning of July 21. The criminal complaint stated that in a recorded conversation in mid-2019, Clark, a lobbyist who worked for Householder, said of Generation Now "nobody knows the money goes to the Speaker's account, it is controlled by his people, and it's not recorded. A (c)(4) is non-recorded."

The group faces up to 20 years in prison for the bribery conspiracy. FirstEnergy has not yet been indicted in the scheme, but is easily recognizable due to references in the criminal complaint to its plants and the politics of HB 6. The criminal complaint put the total amount of money that FirstEnergy entities paid to Generation Now at nearly $60.9 million.

“毫无疑问，这是拉里·家人的501（c）（4），”俄亥俄州南部地区戴维·德维勒斯（David Devillers）的美国检察官在新闻发布会上对记者说。

HB 6受到有关科学家，塞拉俱乐部和其他环境团体的反对，该组织涉及俄亥俄州的能源效率和可再生能源激励措施，并用纳税人的补贴代替它们。通过全民投票废除它的努力未能获得足够的签名，今年将其投票。

Governor DeWine called for Householder to step down from his speakership in a statement made the evening of July 21.

“I am deeply concerned about the allegations of wrongdoing in the criminal complaint issued today by the U.S. Attorney’s Office," his statement said. "Every American has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Because of the nature of these charges, it will be impossible for Speaker Householder to effectively lead the Ohio House of Representatives; therefore, I am calling on Speaker Householder to resign immediately. This is a sad day for Ohio."

Borges was chairman of the Ohio Republican Party before he was ousted by allies of President Donald Trump following the 2016 presidential election. He was recently censured by the state party in June for creating a SuperPAC that supported Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Borges pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of unauthorized use of a public office in a separate incident in 1999.

Firstergy解决方案尚未被指控犯罪。根据新闻reports该公司指出，它计划与调查充分合作。7月21日，致电发言人办公室的电话未返回。