How utility and tech firms ‘educate’ regulators with big donations, secret retreats

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — As a pink-and-gold sunset faded over the waterside Ben Hotel, Republican state utility officials streamed out of a reception where they had been imbibing with executives from the industries they regulate.

Milling about the coastal glam lobby, one attendee complained about service dogs in the first-class cabin on his flight. A group of men in cowboy hats urged fellow regulators and operatives to join them in continuing the night elsewhere. Another cluster lamented the growing number of local data center bans.

The industry-funded retreat was not meant to be seen. Handouts said reporters and constituents were not welcome. But their name tags identified the attendees moving through the lobby. Among them were utility commissioners — state officials whose decisions impact electricity bills and determine whether utilities can build power plants and transmission lines.

As energy-hungry data centers and rising electricity bills have stoked voters’ anger, some elected but obscure utility commissioners are meeting privately with companies whose fortunes they regulate, according to corporate filings and internal emails reviewed by The Washington Post.

In interviews, commissioners and industry reps said it’s all in the interest of education. But watchdog groups say the industry-funded intermingling is a brazen conflict, as utility and tech companies seek project approvals and elected officials work to keep their seats.

Last month’s all-expenses-paid West Palm Beach retreat was organized by the Regulators Roundtable, an ideologically conservative group whose membership is recruited from the utility industry, tech firms and right-leaning commissioners who tend to support their plans for rapid growth. Major funders have included Google, NRG Energy, the American Gas Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute, according to documents that the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog, obtained under public records laws and shared with The Post.

“These are companies whose profits are directly affected by decisions made by a remarkably small group of regulators,” said Gabriel Straus, a research fellow at the Energy and Policy Institute. “The last thing you want to hear when you are struggling to make ends meet is your utility commissioner is sipping cocktails at a resort with the utility executives raising your rates.”

The group promises sponsors — several paying $50,000 to be “Inaugural Member Investors” — the chance to “engage directly with these key decision-makers” and provide “insights and expertise that can help steer policy.” Its nonprofit arm flies commissioners to luxury hotels for private meetings with industry representatives, while its political wing contributes directly to campaigns in the 10 states where voters elect these regulators.

The Regulators Roundtable denied any conflicts of interest.

Elizabeth Gianini, the group’s president, said the access promised to corporate sponsors is appropriate, because the organization is private and “no official actions by public service and utility commissioners can nor do occur during programming.” She said the involvement of commissioners in raising money from regulated companies and the lack of public access to the gatherings does not violate any laws.

Gianini declined to provide a full list of companies and trade groups financing the organization. IRS filings show the group is aiming to spend more than $3.7 million over this year and next.

Founded last year by Gianini and a regulator from Georgia, the Regulators Roundtable is intertwined with GOPAC, one of the Republican Party’s oldest political training and recruiting organizations. It shares GOPAC’s offices in suburban Virginia. And a GOPAC “education” fund provides the Roundtable with administrative support and strategic guidance, according to Gianini, who is also a director at GOPAC.

The Roundtable hosts a “campaign school” for commissioners at GOPAC’s headquarters that is aimed at honing their political skills and helping them win reelection.

At the January session, presenters included Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed political powerhouse that has helped roll back renewable energy subsidies and climate regulations. Google was there, too, leading a session on using artificial intelligence to improve political communications.

The involvement of Google, long a leader in promoting clean energy, reflects how the politics of electricity are changing as the company seeks more power plants and commissioners willing to approve them.

“Google has been a great supporter from the start of our organization,” Gianini wrote in an email connecting Ed Lodge, an Idaho utilities commissioner and honorary chair of the Roundtable Institute, with Google lobbyist Ron Barnes.

Google is identified in internal emails as a founding sponsor of the Regulators Roundtable, and Barnes serves on the board of the institute, which supports the retreats with industry officials.

Google said in a statement it only funds and participates in the group’s networking and educational activities, adding it “regularly engages with policymakers to share our responsible approach to energy, infrastructure and data center development. Like many in our industry, we collaborate with third parties to facilitate these conversations with officials across the political spectrum.”

The Roundtable’s outreach to prospective donors positions the organization as protecting utility-friendly regulators from “radical climate activists,” consumer advocates and other adversaries eager to tap ratepayer frustration to “shift regulatory control.”

“The need for this group became clear when liberal organizations invested millions to defeat conservative candidates for Corporate Commissioner in Arizona,” Gianini wrote in a March 2025 email to a vice president at Georgia-based electricity giant Southern Company.

Georgia illustrates the political stakes. Voters ousted two long-serving GOP commissioners there last year, after the commission green-lit six rate increases for Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power in five years. This fall, Republicans risk losing control of the commission for the first time in three decades. Gianini highlighted the risk that “control of Georgia’s Commission could flip entirely” in a recruiting email to a commissioner from another state.

Her email to Southern Company took aim at PowerLines, a nonpartisan utility watchdog that tracks rate increases and helps consumers participate in commission proceedings. It warned that such groups “advocating against conservative commissioners” are investing heavily in commission races and argued that energy companies should help build a political counterweight.

PowerLines officials say it spends no money on races, and the group is focused narrowly on why utility bills are going up.

Big energy companies “don’t want to upset the relationships they are comfortable with,” said Ari Peskoe, an electricity markets scholar at Harvard University who sits on the PowerLines advisory board. “They don’t want fresh voices on these commissions. It is a risk. It is an unknown that jeopardizes their entire business model.”

The Roundtable’s fundraising relies in part on utility commissioners cultivating financial support for the organization from companies they regulate during meetings not typically disclosed to constituents.

Internal emails show Gianini enlisted several commissioners in trying to persuade utilities and industry groups to become “investors.”

“Michele Wheeler from NextEra needs to be impressed!” she wrote to an Oklahoma regulator before a series of meals with prospective Roundtable sponsors on the sidelines of an industry conference in Santa Fe. “I want to be sure she sits next to you and another commissioner that night.”

Gianini continued: “I am getting nervous about the ‘noticing requirements’ every state seems to have their own laws and what it means. Does it make it open to the Public and or Press?”

NextEra, the largest U.S. power utility company, which also touts its commitment to erasing carbon emissions by 2045, did not respond to questions.

Asked about any potential ethical issues raised by elected regulators and industry officials mixing behind closed doors, Lodge, the Idaho utilities commissioner and honorary chair, wrote in an email to The Post that all of the commissioners involved are expected to abide by their state ethics laws.

Tommy Tucker, a North Carolina commissioner who disclosed accepting $2,274 of expenses for the institute’s event in Washington, said critics misunderstand the purpose of the gatherings.

“There is no conflict whatsoever,” he said. “It is educational. You get to meet with other commissioners who are experiencing the same things we are also dealing with data centers.”

He said conversations have also included how to best deploy wind and solar.

But some commissioners have voiced reservations after being courted by the group.

Internal emails show that Alabama Public Service Commissioner Jeremy Oden hesitated over an invitation to a Roundtable gathering in Washington just months before his Republican primary.

Oden had previously signed on to a Roundtable effort to shield regulated utilities — and the state utility commissions — from a White House-ordered review of policies that foster anticompetitive monopolies.

About the Washington event, though, Oden wrote to a political consultant: “I would really like to go to this but don’t know if it is a good idea.”

In the end, he decided against it. “I have never attended one of their events nor phone conversations,” Oden, who lost his reelection bid, said in an email to The Post.

Josh Byrnes, an Iowa utility commissioner, shows up on the internal invite list for another dinner, this one with “potential investor” Southern Company.

Byrnes said he had cut off contact with the Roundtable by then, amid scheduling conflicts and his concerns about its political overtones.

“This is probably something I should not be involved with,” he said in an interview. “People need to do a better job thinking things through when they go to these events. I always ask myself, ‘How would you explain that to a ratepayer?’”

Many utility and tech companies, however, have appeared enthusiastic about supporting and participating in Roundtable events.

NRG, which disclosed its $50,000 donation in corporate filings, said it enlisted with the Regulators Roundtable to “ensure that the perspective of competitive suppliers was represented in discussions.”

The company said in a statement that “NRG regularly engages with regulators, policymakers, and industry stakeholders across the political spectrum to advocate for consumer choice, competitive markets, and reliable, affordable energy.”

It added that it is “not currently active with the organization,” though Roundtable emails suggest its membership won’t lapse until 2027.

Southern Company has not reported donating directly to the Regulators Roundtable, but the company did give $25,000 to GOPAC last year, as that organization’s contributions from utilities soared.

Dominion Energy, Duke Energy and NextEra have also collectively contributed $950,000 to GOPAC since last year. All are seeking regulatory approval for billions of dollars in new power plants, transmission lines and other infrastructure needed to serve surging electricity demand driven by AI data centers — investments expected to generate substantial returns for shareholders.

“We participate in the political process on behalf of our customers and employees,” Dominion said in a statement. “Our contributions are bipartisan and transparent, and we don’t ask the recipients of our campaign contributions for favors.”

Duke did not respond to questions.

GOPAC officials wrote in an email that their support for the Roundtable comes from a separate GOPAC educational fund that does not disclose its donors. They said those donors are not permitted to “earmark” their contributions to be passed through to specific groups or causes. The chief of staff for that GOPAC fund is also identified on tax documents as the Roundtable’s secretary.

Asked about concerns the funding of GOPAC and the Roundtable with regulated industry money creates a conflict, GOPAC responded: “One person’s concern is another’s enthusiasm for a mission of supporting public service and utility commissioners by giving them access to a broad range of perspectives to boost energy reliability, affordability, modernization and innovation.”

“We acknowledge there are those who want to halt production, stop permitting, put on hidden fees, and mandate transitions in their drive to discredit the Regulators Roundtable and Regulators Roundtable Institute,” said the GOPAC statement. “Fortunately, most Americans want their elected and appointed leaders to have a wide-ranging and well-informed understanding of the challenges and opportunities before them.”

The program from a GOPAC energy conference in Nashville last summer offers a glimpse of how it is seeking to influence regulation. Former Trump senior economic adviserSteve Moore pilloried renewable energy incentives and emissions targets, according to a copy of his presentation obtained through a public records request. The documents also show a Texas energy investment firm prepared slides depicting lawmakers who champion aggressive greenhouse gas rules as hapless weaklings getting shoved into a school locker.

On the sidelines, Roundtable donors NRG and the American Gas Association were joined by several state regulators at a Roundtable dinner.

Gas association spokeswoman Emily Ellis said the organization “engages with elected officials and regulators at all levels and across the political spectrum to educate them on energy policy issues.”

The secrecy of the Regulators Roundtable stands in contrast to transparency demands some of its members make of other groups seeking to influence them.

In Louisiana, utility commissioner Eric Skrmetta is leading an effort to require groups involving themselves in regulatory activities to produce sworn affidavits disclosing all the out-of-state donors of any large national organizations that provide financial support. Critics call it an onerous rule aimed at sidelining local nonprofits with layered funding streams.

As drafted, the rule does not appear to apply to activities outside commission proceedings.

So Skrmetta, who did not respond to requests for comment, would not have been required to disclose which donors bankrolled his Regulators Roundtable trip to Washington in January and what was discussed there.