Ernest Moniz, former secretary of the Department of Energy during the Obama administration, is joining the board of directors of Southern Company, the second largest utility company in America and parent of Mississippi Power Company. Moniz was a champion of the failed Kemper power plant and oversaw a $500 million federal investment in Kemper.
Placing on the your board one of the Kemper’s key enablers and proponents is indeed an ironic way to atone for a boondoggle that wasted $6.5 billion in shareholder money. It shows just how much of an iron grip Southern CEO Tom Fanning has over its board. Apparently there is no accountability for making a $6.5 billion mistake in the corporate world of CEO-controlled puppet boards. No doubt Moniz will be well compensated for his service.
Moniz’s appointment to the Southern board is a fitting footnote to a tale of gargantuan corporate hubris.
“You know, if this Kemper plant had actually gone through and we had to pay for it? That would have mortgaged the future of the poorest state in the nation with the most expensive power plant ever built in the United States,” said Louie Miller, director of the Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club.
“And it was Moniz who gave the federal government’s seal of approval to all of that, and apparently never thought twice about it,” said Miller.
— Wyatt Emmerich
