FPL is a top player in Florida state politics where it wields significant influence with the dominant Republican party, which has held trifecta control of the state government since 1999.

At the Federal level FPL parent company NextEra has spent an average of $3.7 million annually over the last five years on lobbying. NextEra’s lobbying expenditures show a marked increase of $1.3 million from 2016 to 2017. NextEra’s stable of lobbying firms includes Ballard Partners, headed by Brian Ballard, a prominent Trump fundraiser.

In 2019 Florida Power & Light was second only to Disney in the number of lobbyists it had deployed at the state level in Tallahassee, 32 to 35 respectively. FPL spends around $1 million on state level lobbying annually.

Interestingly, while many corporations are sheepish about their lobbying efforts, FPL’s CEO has argued that the company’s customers should foot the bill for lobbying as he does in this exchange with a SunSentinel reporter:

“Silagy said lobbying costs are not part of customers’ bills — FPL’s shareholders pay for it. ‘Not one dime of it — no travel associated with flying up to Tallahassee,’ he said. ‘And it should be,’ Silagy said, arguing that lobbying often benefits customers.”

NextEra is also a prolific across the aisle political donor. Like many utilities, the donations from NextEra’s PAC and employees lean Republican but include substantial donations to both parties depending on the election cycle. For example in the 2016 election cycle, NextEra’s PAC gave a combined $1.8 Million to right wing outside spending groups Right to Rise USA and Senate Leadership Fund, the top two recipients of the PAC’s donations. However in the 2020 election cycle, NextEra PAC’s top recipients were the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees.

In its home state of Florida, NextEra and its subsidiaries are also major political donors. Florida’s 2018 election cycles, which included a highly competitive gubernatorial race, showcased FPL’s unscrupulous attempts at influence. All told FPL pumped out $8 million in campaign contributions during the 2018 election cycle. Among these donations was a $25,000 contribution to the secretive Florida Strong PAC that ran libelous ads against Democrat Andrew Gillum on Facebook.

According to data from Energy and Policy Institute, NextEra and its subsidiaries, including Florida Power & Light, doled out $5.4 million to Florida state lawmakers from January 1, 2019 to October 30, 2020. 

The benefit of these influence efforts on FPL’s bottom line is evident in FPL’s relationships with the Public Service Commission, which regulates Florida’s utilities. The PSC is appointed by the legislature and governor, who are targets of FPL lobbying and campaign donations. This important regulatory body has overwhelming approved FPL rate hikes and projects against the interest of consumers. The SunSentinel detailed a few of these approvals:

• Commissioners decided in favor of FPL in May [2019], allowing the utility to keep $772 million in annual tax savings, instead of returning it to consumers. The decision went against the PSC’s own staff recommendation.
• Commissioners agreed with FPL’s accounting that it spent $1.3 billion to recover from Hurricane Irma, and did not seek a further review of the costs.
• Commissioners paved the way for FPL and other utilities to provide less detail than the law specifies on costs to bury power lines underground, a 30-year project that FPL’s CEO has said would cost as much as $35 billion.