It's 505 and welcome in to a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. We start off with a pretty big business announcement as well as some news as it relates to the federal government this morning as a Durham-based energy company that is accused of collecting hundreds of millions of dollars for electricity savings it did not produce has filed for bankruptcy protection three months after federal regulators imposed more than 1.1 billion dollars in penalties and repayments the question and the company at hand american efficient llc based in durham filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy this week in u.s bankruptcy court in the western district of north carolina The company reported assets of between $1 and $10 million and liabilities of approximately $1.4 billion, according to court records. Ben Abrams, the managing director of American Efficient, was not immediately available for comment when Carolina Journal reached out. The filing offers the clearest indication yet of the financial consequences facing American Efficient after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also known as FERC, concluded in April that the company and several affiliates operated a decades-long scheme involving wholesale electrical markets.
On April the 15th, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission ordered American Efficient LLC and five affiliated companies to pay some $722 million in civil penalties and return nearly $410 million plus interest to two regional electricity markets. Furke described the operation as one of the largest and most brazen fraud schemes in the Commission's history. American Officient denies any wrongdoing and says its participation in the markets were repeatedly reviewed and approved by the entities that FERC say were in fact defrauded. According to FERC chairman Laura V. Stewart, she said, this case represents an extraordinary and deeply troubling breach of public trust, a meticulously orchestrated scheme that siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars away from hardworking American families and businesses.
Such blatant disregard for the rules not only threatens the integrity of our energy markets, but also undermines the confidence that customers and consumers place in these systems. The case centers on American efficient participation in what is called wholesale capacity markets that are operated by companies like PJM IntraConnect and the Mid-Continent Independent Systems Operator known as MISO, M-I-S-O. Capacity markets pay power suppliers and other resources to ensure that sufficient energy is available when demand is high. I think about times of the year when it is extremely hot and extremely cold when you could see some of those highs and lows within the electrical system. Energy efficiency programs can participate by demonstrating that they will produce measurable reductions in electricity use, reducing the amount of generation capacity needed to maintain reliability.
American Efficient contracted with manufacturers, retailers, and distribution centers that sold energy efficient appliances, lighting, and other products. Its partners included major retailers such as Lowe's, Home Depot, and Walmart. The company obtained product sales information and contractual rights, which it said allowed it to calculate and claim electricity savings associated with those purchases. It then bundled those projected savings together and sold them into wholesale capacity auctions. Mm-hmm.
FERC concluded that American Efficient had no relationship with the consumers who purchased its product, lacked the authority to produce, control, or commit any sort of reductions in electricity use. Regulators say that the company instead paid retailers and manufacturers pennies or fractions of a penny for product data, then claimed credit for efficiency improvements that would have occurred without any sort of financial investment. The FERC agency says that American Efficient did not demonstrate that its payments caused retailers to promote efficient products or that consumers purchased them because of the program. FERC also found that American Efficient claimed savings tied to purchases sold before it entered into any agreements with the businesses that provided sales data. The company referred to those earlier transactions as, quote, historicals.
FERC said that the company collected nearly $500 million through what it called money-for-nothing schemes that violated federal market manipulation laws and tariffs governing the PMJ IntraConnect and MISO. American Efficient has argued that FERC misunderstood the company's contracts and measurement methods. It also has been said that the PMJ IntraConnect approved its participation more than 30 times during approximately a decade of market activity. Despite the size of the penalty, the April order is not yet equivalent to a final federal court judgment. The bankruptcy filing comes after the deadline for American.
Efficient to pay FERC $722 million in those civil penalties, and that that pass without any public announcement of payment. Under the Federal Power Act, FERC must seek enforcement in federal district court when an assessed penalty remains unpaid for 60 days. This order came down in April, so we are well past that point. The district court would review the case and would allow American Efficient to present evidence and a legal arrangement to a judge and, if applicable, a jury. FERC's April the 15th order triggered a 60-day period that ended back in mid-June.
And as of July the 22nd, FERC's public enforcement records did not identify a separate federal court complaint seeking any sort of affirmation of that civil penalty. The bankruptcy itself does not overturn FERC's findings or resolve American Efficient's current challenges. It places The company's debts and assets under bankruptcy court supervision while the underlying regulatory and legal dispute continues.
However, it could substantially complicate FERC's efforts to collect the penalties, which are more than a billion dollars, while this situation unfolds. The company's reported liabilities are more than 100 times the high end of its estimated asset range. American Efficient and Affirmed Energy. Also, had a separate constitutional lawsuit pending against FERC in a U.S. district court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
The company filed this case back in January of 2025, arguing that FERC's process violated their rights to have fraud allegations decided by a jury and an Article III judge. They also challenged protections limiting a president's ability to remove a FERC commissioner. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder denied their request for a preliminary injunction in November of 2025, allowing FERC's proceedings to continue. The underlying constitutional claims, however, in this case, remain unresolved.
The bankruptcy and the federal case have also drawn attention to people behind the Durham company and their history of playing in politics, specifically their history of supporting former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper and other North Carolina Democrats. The head of the company in Abrams is a Chapel Hill native and a Duke University graduate acquiring American Efficient in 2013 and developing this wholesale capacity market model that is at the center of the FERC case. He later co-founded a group called Modern Energy, which says that it owns American Efficient. And serves as the parent company's CEO. FERC did not assess a civil penalty against Abram personally.
Instead, it opposed liabilities on American Efficient, Modern Energy, and four other affiliated companies. Abram's father, J. Adam Abram, is a longtime triangle businessman with interest in real estate, banking, and insurance, and was appointed by Democrat Governor Roy Cooper to the chairman of the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency Board in 2019. Members of the Abram family contributed $72,850 to Cooper's campaigns for attorney general and governor, and another $22,000 to his current U.S. Senate campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
The family also contributed more than $200,000 to the North Carolina Democratic Leadership Committee, which is a separate committee previously controlled. By Cooper. In total, members of the Abram family have made at least 244 contributions, totaling more than $886,000 to North Carolina Democrats since 1991. The North Carolina Republican Party has argued that Cooper's efforts to expand North Carolina's clean energy economy stood to benefit companies like American Efficient and the Abram family. Its public statement, however, did not identify a state contract, grant, or regulatory decision to award to American Efficient.
In response to questions from Carolina Journal, Cooper's Senate campaign did not directly address whether the former governor learned of the FERC investigation, whether it would return the Abrams family contributions, or whether political donations influenced Adam Abrams' appointment. Instead, the campaign criticized Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Watley before defending Cooper's rights. Record. A Cooper spokesperson told the Carolina Journal: Roy Cooper spent his career cracking down on fraud, recovering hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, and holding major corporations accountable when ripping off North Carolinians.
FERC's case does not allege that Cooper, his administration, or any other North Carolina officials participated in the misconduct. The disputed payments came from federally regulated wholesale capacity markets rather than a North Carolina program controlled by the governor's office. This is a very interesting story as a company, American Efficient LLC, purchasing data from major retailers as it related to energy-efficient appliances, able to bundle all of those purchases together, even though they were not responsible for the production of said appliance or the sale of said appliance, bundle all of that together and sell it to major electrical regional connections throughout. The United States, specifically the PMJ IntraConnect and the Mid-Continent Independent Systems Operator. We have got more coverage and more detail on this story.
It's a bizarre one. Over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Look for the story with the headline: Durham Energy Firm Files Bankruptcy After $1.1 billion FERC fraud order. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe.
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Continuing our coverage of the state budget on this Friday morning, we are tracking some money that is included for multiple studies that are set to be conducted over the next couple of years as North Carolina lawmakers are using the new state budget to explore possible changes to things like firework regulations, education, healthcare, firefighting safety, and the state's motorsports industry. Rather than immediately changing state law, the General Assembly included studies of each issue in the budget. And coming from the past, these studies have often preceded changes to law and will give the public a look at what lawmakers are considering for future upcoming legislative sessions. Let's start here on fireworks portions of Senate Bill 257. The state budget directs the North Carolina Collaboratory.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study issues related to the regulations of fireworks and whether the category of fireworks permitted for sale, transportation, possession, and use in the state should be expanded. As part of the study, the collaboratory must examine how expansion could affect public safety and emergency services. It must also consider the feasibility and potential structure of licensing and permitting system for businesses that would wish to sell fireworks. The study must address things like consumer safety, local government authority, economic and fiscal effects, potential funding mechanisms for public safety, and education using tax proceeds. It will look at comparisons with other states and any other issues that the collaboratory considers relevant to the discussion.
That final report is due July the 4th, 2027.
Some other things that are being studied in the budget known as open enrollment section of the state budget directs the collaboratory to study how local school administrative units could allow students to attend any school within a district where they live rather than limiting them to their assigned school that is typically determined by a zip code. The state must examine existing voluntary open enrollment plans and consider enrollment periods, application procedures, school capacity, transportation options, reasons that an application may be denied, and possible appeal processes. During a recent open enrollment initiative, Dr. Bob Lubke with the John Locke Foundation said that open enrollment increases access to highly rated schools or districts, improves academic outcomes such as test scores and graduation rates, fosters district improvement, and even Helps encourage students to attend rural districts. Lubke went on to say, research points to the many benefits of open school enrollment have not only for students, but also for the institutions themselves.
That's going to be an interesting one to keep an eye on. The budget allocates $300,000 to establish a work group tasked with developing a strategy to transition North Carolina from its current allotment-based school funding system to a weighted school funding system model for K through 12 education. The group will consider. Consolidating non-teaching, project-based, resource-based, and need-based funds into a clearer per-pupil category. It will also study replacing position-based teacher allotments with dollar amounts based on average daily membership, improving accountability for state education spending, and determining which state agencies should distribute funds to local school districts.
Lubke said that the change would move the state in a much more desirable direction because it ties to funding for students and it would improve transparency and accountability. He added that the reform may be more likely now because lawmakers in both parties recognize problems with the current funding system, and many districts are facing declining enrollment across North Carolina.
So, a couple of things there on the education front.
Now, turning our conversation to healthcare, the budget directs the North Carolina Collaboratory to study rising health care costs across the state and identify. the factors driving those increases. The study will also examine strategies for reducing costs and compare North Carolina's approach with efforts that are underway in other states. That report is due April the 1st of next year, and it must evaluate already taken actions to control health care costs and recommend any additional measures. Its findings will also inform a separate healthcare cost study scheduled for completion in 2028.
On to firefighters. Under the Firefighter Protection Act, the General Assembly appropriated $15 million to study and address firefighters' exposure to chemicals that are known as PFAS. The initiative included groundwater testing near fire stations, testing of drinking water wells at firefighters' homes, and studying PFAS levels and potential health effects in firefighters. The funding may also be used to provide temporary water supplies, install long-term filtration systems, and establish a program to deep clean protective equipment to reduce that exposure in the future. We've talked a lot about PFAS in a variety of different factors over the last couple of years.
We'll be keeping an eye on that study as well. Finally, dealing with the motorsports industry here in North Carolina, a section of the recently approved state budget allocates $400,000 to Stanford Hauser's Business School Development Group. To update its 2004 study, Motorsports: A North Carolina Growth Industry Under Threat. The study will examine the conditions and economic potential of North Carolina's motorsports industry, including opportunities to attract professional sportsmen and club racing events. It will also review motorsports research and development, manufacturing, and testing facilities.
The group, in consultation with the Department of Commerce, must submit its report to the Legislative Oversight Committee and the Fiscal Research Division by April the 15th of 2027.
So, a couple of interesting things here that lawmakers hope spending some money on will lead them to make policy changes and decisions here in North Carolina in the years to come. You can read more on all of these different initiatives over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Look for the story with the headline: New NC Budget includes money for multiple studies. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no.
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So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickranger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. It's 5:36. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig.
Good Friday morning to you. We have been talking a lot about a Vietnamese EV manufacturer by the name of VinFast right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Over the last couple of years, this company back during the Roy Cooper administration here in North Carolina announced plans to build a major facility here in the state, create more than 7,500 jobs. It was a major business announcement when it was made back during the Cooper administration.
However, over the last couple of years, we've learned about some large financial issues for the company, some expansions in other parts of the world, predominantly over in Asia. And that has drawn a lot of questions as to what is VinFast's future here in North Carolina as deadlines and set dates for opening portions of the factory and hiring employees has continued to slip. There's actually a new lawsuit here in North Carolina to walk us through some of those details this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch VinFast was the recipient of a JD grant.
We've talked a lot about and criticized a lot of this program here in North Carolina. The North Carolina Attorney General and Jeff Jackson, on behalf of the Commerce Department, is now suing this Vietnamese EV maker. We reported that back just a couple of months ago. What's the latest that you're following in court? The latest development, Nick, is that both sides in this case, so Jeff Jackson, the Attorney General, and the State Commerce Department on one side and VINFAST on the other side, are agreeing that a lot of the information and details about the suit should remain under seal, basically away from public view.
And that's kind of an interesting development. The suit was filed initially in May. The Attorney General's office, the State Justice Department, filed an amended complaint, which is basically sort of the update to the original lawsuit. And they filed that amended complaint provisionally under seal, meaning that they were filing it not for public consumption, and eventually then asked to have the permanently sealing that amended complaint along with some exhibits that go along with it. And VINFAST is going along with that.
And basically, in a court filing that Came out this week. VinFast says there's a lot of information in this suit that is confidential business information, things including employees and head counts that are expected for this project, contractor and vendor information, contract and bid terms and the financing, and also some internal project and location details.
So a lot of the things that you would normally, as a business, want to try to keep secret are spelled out in this suit. And basically, that's the same information that VinFast had to provide to the state government. as part of the terms of getting that major job development investment grant that you mentioned, $300 million potentially, but it's stuff that had it not been provided to the government as part of the grant terms, would definitely not be made public because it's the type of thing that a competitor could use against FinFast.
Now, I think it's important to note that the suit from Jeff Jackson, which was announced back in May, is basically a sign that state government came on board to what a lot of other skeptics and critics had been saying from the very beginning is that this is not likely to end well for North Carolina. Even going back to when this was first announced, there were a lot of people that looked at this company and said, wait a minute, this company has a not good reputation. This is an untested technology. No one knows anything about this car, whether it's going to work or not. FinFast has all kinds of financial problems.
All kinds of terrible reviews. And now, more than a couple of years after this initial announcement, VinFast has also delayed its projections about when it was going to provide jobs, when this site was actually going to open. And so the lawsuit. is basically saying VinFast, we gave you access to this mega site in Chatham County.
Now we're just going to take that back because you're not going to ever meet the obligations that are spelled out in this contract.
So the suit from the Commerce Department, as led by Attorney General Jeff Jackson, is basically the state recognizing that We made a bum deal and we're going to try to make the best of it by getting the site back. Yeah, a bum dealma is a pretty accurate description of this and also relevant, Mitch, because outside of the job development investment grant, the JDIG grant, the state of North Carolina has already invested tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure, roadways, water and sewer, and other sorts of utilities and things of that nature to prep that site. for VinFast to develop that. I want to come back to that in a minute, but over to this other portion of these pertinent business dealings. No surprise, Mitch.
And as you mentioned in your open, a publicly or a company like this does not want to spill all of their company secrets for every other person and every other potential competitor in the world to see. But this creates an interesting dynamic because there's some level of transparency, I think, here that the public feels like they're entitled to because this is in fact public money through a JDIG program that taxpayers are essentially paying for. It creates a very interesting dynamic for something like this as you deal with a private business. But because. Because now government is involved and taxpayer dollars are involved, there should be, and I think many folks would argue, there is a high level of scrutiny as to how are these dollars being spent.
It's an interesting kind of dynamic. It is, and I think it will be interesting to see how this attempt to maintain the secrecy plays out going forward. My guess is, at least for now. The proceedings will be allowed with VINFAST being able to keep this information secret with the help of the Commerce Department. But as you get closer to a resolution, making some of this public almost certainly has to come out because one of the things that's being alleged is that VINFAST isn't going to live up to its...
Initial projections.
Well, I mean, you can't make that case unless you say, here's what the projections are, here's what VinFest has actually done, or what it now says it's going to do, and they are different. If you if you don't Put forward any of that information, it's hard to make that case. And my guess is if. For some reason, a judge were to say that the entire arrangement. Was going to remain secret, and the entire piece of litigation, even after it's finalized, would remain secret.
That some enterprising transparency activist, whether it's a media coalition or someone else, would file a suit and say, wait a minute, this can't happen. You've got to make this public, because this is the type of thing that the people who were going to be financing this major grant. And not to mention the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that Chatham County was going to provide in its own local incentives. They have a right to know. what the initial deal was, how VINFAST fell short, and what is going to be the best use of their tax money going forward.
Another piece we haven't even touched on yet is you mentioned what's already been done infrastructure-wise. Remember that one of the pieces of this deal was new or expanded highway access. And making that happen caused the state to acquire by eminent domain a number of properties, including in late 1800s church that all had to get knocked down.
So that's already happened. VinFast is nowhere near doing anything to put up a factory on this property, but that's not going to help. Even if the state gets the site back, that's not going to help the homeowners or the church members who saw their properties knocked down to make way for this highway. Yeah, and we had that what can really only be described as that really miserable picture back of this church halfway demolished back. I think it was either last year or the year prior as the government did.
Well, unfortunately, Mitch, they essentially just took the property, paid what they would describe as fair value, took the property and then took a bulldozer to it to put in portions of that highway to connect this new mega site to the existing highway network. Interesting in this case, you mentioned at the open here that it was, in fact, the Commerce Department and a North Carolina Attorney General, Jeff Jackson, that originally filed some of this documentation and asked to have some of this information not available to the public. Did I understand that correctly? Yeah. That's correct.
Now, the initial lawsuit, I don't believe, was filed under a seal, but once the amended complaints, the updated version of the suit was filed in early July, it was filed under provisionally under seal. And basically, the Commerce Department accepted VinFast's argument that Look, this information that is provided is information that we, VenFAS, provided to you, the government. With the understanding that it was going to be held confidential as part of this agreement. And so I think that the Congress Department was trying to honor. What's left of the agreement by not making the information public?
Vinfast, in its court filing this week, is saying, yes, this is confidential information, and we would not. Release it at all, except that we have to, as part of this arrangement with the Commerce Department.
So, but as you pointed out, Since taxpayer dollars are involved, since this is something that involves the government. At some level, There is a sense that you need to have this information be made public. And so I think there will probably be a legal dance about. What of this information is the type of information that needs to be made public versus what is the information that's going to be allowed to remain private because it's something that is confidential business information for VinFast. Say, for example, that.
Part of this suit involved details about the about the Patented technology that VinFast uses for something. I'm guessing most everyone would suggest that. That's the type of thing that VinFast can keep to itself. There's no real public. Benefit to having that released.
But when you're talking about amounts of money involved, promises about how many jobs were going to be created, how many jobs would be there, that was part of the whole arrangement about why the project was accepted and why there seemed to be a greater benefit in having this project than in leaving things well enough alone and allowing folks to stay in their homes and allowing the church to remain open. If you're going to be weighing the potential benefits of this project versus the potential costs, having more of that information out in the public might be something that's seen as beneficial rather than allowing the entire thing to remain secret. And we'll, of course, watch that as it continues to play out through the legal system here in North Carolina. We have not only a lot of coverage on VinFast, but many other of these JDIG programs over the last couple of years that I say unfortunately have not come to fruition. Many of these companies contacting the Commerce Department saying, hey, we're not going to meet our targets, not getting some of those government funds as originally intended.
All of those details over on our website this morning. CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.
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Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, we are keeping an eye on some campaign finance as it relates to the very influential and important United States Senate race here in North Carolina.
Some very big fundraising numbers for former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper, who raised $14.8 million in the second quarter, well outpacing his opponent Michael Watley, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, who raised about $5 million. Cooper reported $14.8 million in quarter two, a combination of his joint fundraising committees, Cooper Victory, and his campaign committee, Cooper for North Carolina. Cooper for North Carolina raised about $2.9 million, while the Cooper Victory Group raised $11.8 million. This does not account for what has transferred to the candidates committee, with Cooper's cash on hand totaling about $27.4 million across those two committees.
Some very strong numbers there for the former governor. Watley for Senate, Watley's campaign committee reported $2.9 million in quarter two. Watley saw another $2.9 million from the joint fundraising committee Watley victory. This comes to $4.7 million with the joint fundraising committee transferring $1.1 million to the candidate committee. The remaining $300,000 came from another committee transfer, putting Watley's cash on hand totals at $7.8 million between the two committees.
Chris Cooper, professor of politics at Western Carolina University, told the Carolina Journal, the narrative has been guiding this race for the last six months will continue. The narrative is that Roy Cooper is ahead, whether you measure by national. Environment, polls, or fundraising. According to a May 2026 Carolina Journal poll, Cooper is ahead in polling. Cooper was inches away from reaching the 50% of the electorate, with 49.8% of likely North Carolina voters polled saying that they would vote for Cooper, compared to just 38.7% saying that they would vote for Watley at the time of the poll.
These results indicate a more than 11. A noteworthy gain over March, where Cooper's lead was 7.8%. That poll was conducted of 600 likely voters. Andy Jackson, the director of the Civitas Center at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal: Democrats outraising Republicans in high-profile races has been the norm for quite some time. But while this pattern has played out in North Carolina before, Jackson said that fundraising advantages do not always translate into victories.
He noted that in 2020, Cal Cunningham outraised Tom Tillis by 2-1 and lost. He went on to say in 2022, Sherry Beasley outraised Ted Budd by more than 2.5 to 1, and she lost as well. He said that Cooper is on pace to outrage Watley by almost 3 to 1, but that does not guarantee that he will win. We'll be keeping an eye on campaign finance, not only for the United States Senate race, but other key races here across North Carolina as we approach November. That's going to do it for a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour.
WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. Have a great weekend. We're back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.
