Power Corrupts: Cleaning Up America's Biggest Industry

(Hardback)

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An investigation into the corruption of the electric industry and its role in polluting our planet.

Electric utilities have faced a few scandals over the past century or so, but corruption is growing as the power industrys conventional business model is falling apart. Modern technologies challenge their monopoly mindsets and outmoded generators. Threatened utilities, in turn, gun for taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded subsidies, which they increasingly seek through fraud-filled, underhanded schemes. Corruption, however, can be challenged.

In Power Corrupts: Cleaning Up Americas Biggest Industry, Richard Munson reports on blocked bailouts and options for increased transparency and ethics by exploring well-known scandals that have dominated headlines about the energy sector. Munson highlights how power corruption proliferates, enabling outmoded generators to waste money, spew unnecessary pollution, and block clean-energy innovations.Legal cases profiled include Chuck Jones of FirstEnergy, Anne Pramaggiore of Commonwealth Energy, and more.

How did we get here While reviewing the history of utility regulation, Munson argues misconduct is on the rise because modern technologies threaten power monopolies reliance on large nuclear and coal units. As solar and wind costs fall, power monopolies use bribes to survive. Customers and citizens are paying not only for the electricity they use but also the taxes that pay to regulate, subsidize, and investigate utility companies. They should demand more power. Power Corrupts calls for competition and transparency, serving as an essential primer for readers interested in the dark history of the electric industry.

Reviews

We desperately need utilities playing a serious role in the clean energy transition; instead, as this richly reported book makes clear, we have too many players pursuing their own interest instead of the publics. Read it, and then, join us in the fight to seriously regulate these behemoths. -- Bill McKibben, founder, Third Act
Power Corrupts shreds the country club camouflage that masks unscrupulous, often illegal, activities in the C-Suites of many of America's leading electric utilities. It also describes how utility regulatory commissions evolved from guard dogs into lapdogs. If you are curious about why your utility bills are skyrocketing, read this book! -- Denis Hayes, CEO, Bullitt Foundation
Power Corrupts documents how for-profit electric utilities have infected government with deceit, fraud, and graft. It is essential reading to understand why our energy system is failing to deliver for American consumers. -- Ari Peskoe, director, Harvard Electricity Law Initiative

Author Bio

Richard Munson is the author of eight books, including biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, and Jacques Cousteau. He has written extensively about electric utilities as well as an expos of congressional appropriations. Munson also has worked on clean energy and environmental issues for nonprofits, in the private sector, at universities, and on Capitol Hill. He has received public-service awards from Smart Grid Today, Great Lakes Commission, U.S. Clean Heat and Power Association, and American Small Manufacturers Coalition. He now sits on the boards of the Hinsdale Public Library and Greenleaf Advisors.