A new report has highlighted the expenses incurred and money still owed to lobbying and public relations firms by FirstEnergy Solutions during that company’s ongoing bankruptcy restructuring case.

A new report has highlighted the expenses incurred and money still owed to lobbying and public relations firms by FirstEnergy Solutions during that company’s ongoing bankruptcy restructuring case.

According to the report released by the San Francisco-based Energy and Policy Institute, the lobbying firm working with state officials in Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as federal officials, has requested nearly $36 million from FirstEnergy Solutions for work performed from March 2018 through January of this year.

That firm, Washington D.C.-based Akin Gump Strauss, has been working on behalf of FirstEnergy Solutions since the company first began its bankruptcy restructuring process last year. Included in that price tag is $1.5 million for work the lobbying firm performed in Ohio and Pennsylvania, specifically in trying to get those states to enact policy solutions that could keep the company’s nuclear plants up and running.

As it currently stands, both the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the Senate are debating the passage of bills that would provide subsidies to the state’s five nuclear plants. Opponents of those bills are calling them nothing more than bailouts, while supporters frame the bills as necessary to ensure nuclear power plants continue to provide carbon-free electricity for generations to come.

In addition to the expensive lobbying bill, a public relations firm is requesting another $1.2 million from FirstEnergy Solutions for work performed from April 2018 through February. That company, Los Angeles-based Sitrick and Co., acts as the public relations and media contact for FirstEnergy.

FirstEnergy Solutions also paid more than $80,000 to a company called SRA Communications for “coalition building services” in Pennsylvania, specifically to further the communications efforts of a group called Nuclear Power Pennsylvania, which “works to educate Pennsylvanians about the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy,” according to the report.

Finally, the report noted that the company paid $42,000 to the policy group led by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who earlier this week testified in front of a state House committee about the necessity of propping up the state’s nuclear plants.

Dave Anderson, the author of the report, said Friday that he crafted the report to show just how much FirstEnergy Solutions is spending during the bankruptcy restructuring process.

"FirstEnergy Solutions’ multimillion dollar bailout campaigns have proved to be a boon for high-paid political operatives at powerful lobbying and public relations firms,” he said. “Unfortunately, it's consumers that would be stuck paying the multimillion dollar bill if plans to bailout its uncompetitive power plants move forward."

Tom Becker, a spokesman with Sitrick, declined to comment on the report.