Dive Brief:
- NextEra Energy gave $4 million last year to support the construction of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, part of about $333 million donated by private contributors, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
- While NextEra’s donation to the East Wing renovation effort was made public last year, the dollar amount was revealed by the Post’s reporting on an internal spreadsheet that tracked 67 individuals and companies donating $10,000 or more, including others with power sector ties.
- NextEra did not respond to a request for comment on the donation, or why it was made. The timing of the gift was “convenient” for the company, according to Shelby Green, a researcher and communications manager with the Energy & Policy Institute. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is weighing NextEra’s bid to acquire Dominion Energy and potentially create the world’s largest regulated electric utility.
Dive Insight:
NextEra’s donation cannot be recovered from ratepayers at the utility’s Florida Power & Light subsidiary, Green said. And, it was made more than six months before NextEra announced its bid for Dominion.
Still, the donation has drawn concern as controversy around the proposed NextEra-Dominion merger has grown.
“NextEra knows exactly what money buys,” Green told Utility Dive. The company has spent millions on Florida politics in recent years, "and I doubt NextEra is spending that money without expecting something in return,” she said.
Tyson Slocum, director of energy at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said NextEra’s donation was “obviously very problematic.”
He pointed to the company’s agreement with the Department of Energy to help develop a $100 billion energy hub in Paducah, Kentucky, as well as its pending acquisition of Dominion, which requires federal approvals and could be challenged by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, which has recently shown an appetite for intervening in energy mergers.
“Any CEO knows … that if you make a contribution to Trump’s most important vanity project, that he’s going to remember that and return the favor,” Slocum said. “It clouds everything that NextEra is seeking from the federal government in terms of project development, like Paducah, or regulatory approval for its attempted acquisition of Dominion.”
A combined NextEra-Dominion entity would have 10 million customers in four states, a more than 130-GW large-load pipeline of projects and a rate base of $138 billion, according to the deal announcement. The merger must be approved by regulators in Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as well as by the federal government.
Many Virginia state and local officials oppose the deal, and Gov. Abigail Spanberger, D, has called herself “skeptical.”
Slocum called for Congress to investigate the donations, though he expressed doubt that would happen. He did not rule out that state officials or intervenors in the merger review could push for more transparency around the ballroom transactions, pointing to a recent Virginia State Corporation Commission ruling ordering the release of documents related to an investigation into NextEra’s alleged illegal political activity in Florida. In June, the utility company agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations that it lied about its involvement in political interference schemes in that state, according to a proposed settlement.
“This is a brazenly and openly corrupt [Trump] administration where it is seen as standard operating procedure to provide financial contributions to either the president’s business interests or his family’s business interests or to his pet vanity projects in explicit return for favors,” Slocum said.
Other donors to Trump’s ballroom project with financial interests in the power sector include BlackRock, which reportedly gave $5 million through its charitable fund, and Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and CEO of Blackstone, who reportedly gave a $5 million personal donation. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
BlackRock recently acquired Allete, the parent company of Minnesota Power, and is pursuing an acquisition of AES. It has stakes in other utilities as well, including NextEra, Duke Energy and Southern Company.
Blackstone is partnering with PPL Corp. to build up to 14 GW of new power generation in Pennsylvania. It also owns a stake in Northern Indiana Public Service Company, and is pursuing an acquisition of TXNM Energy.
The ballroom donations were made to the Trust for the National Mall, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to “restoring, enriching, and preserving the National Mall – America’s Front Yard – and President’s Park, including the White House grounds,” according to its website.
A tax-exempt organization is generally not required to disclose publicly the names of its contributors, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The Trust’s most recent tax filing lists a number of donation amounts that match the Post’s reporting, but no identifying information.
According to the Post, a 12-page agreement between the government and the Trust requires that the nonprofit “maintain the anonymity of Project donors to the extent provided by law and not publicly recognize any such donor unless explicitly authorized in writing” by staff in the White House’s Executive Residence unit.
