As Part Of Agreement, Beaver County Pushes Energy Supplier

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

November 19, 2012 | 4:30 PM

FirstEnergy is attempting to count all of Beaver County as its “friends and family.” That’s one dynamic of a new agreement between the county and energy supplier that has county commissioners using official letterhead to promote the utility.
The Beaver County Times reports:

BEAVER — Don’t be shocked if you received a letter from the Beaver County Commissioners promoting FirstEnergy Solutions as an electricity supplier. It’s part of a new voluntary program that could put money in the coffers of the county and your town.
A letter on county letterhead and signed by all three commissioners started hitting mailboxes last week. In the letter, the commissioners tell residents that the county has struck an agreement with FirstEnergy Solutions to offer residents fixed rates under the company’s “special voluntary” Friends & Family Program.
Rates for Duquesne Light, Penn Power and West Penn Power customers would be locked in for about two years. For every resident who signs up through the program, the county will receive $5 and the resident’s municipality will receive $5, said Commissioners Chairman Tony Amadio.