Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Lignite Plant boondoggle is in the news again. A whistleblower named Kelli Williams (no relation) says company officials lied to get $382 million of federal money for the $7.5 billion failed experiment. She’s suing Mississippi Power and its Southern Company parent under the False Claims Act. She’s seeking $1.1 billion in treble damages.

She was a Southern Company construction manager assigned to the Kemper project. She had a ringside view of the coverups. Actually, she was in the ring until the company kicked her out - she says for trying to tell the truth.

She says company officials lied about construction delays and cost overruns and withheld information from federal officials and the Mississippi Public Service Commission - information that would have jeopardized federal funding and the PSC’s authorization to build the plant. She filed the suit in 2018 under seal to allow review by the Department of Justice. The DOJ turned a blind eye, and the suit was unsealed late last month. The companies have not yet responded in court.

Bigger Pie didn’t have a ringside seat. But we smelled a rat and hired an expert to analyze the project. He confirmed our suspicions. We tried to expose the project’s lies. We wrote over 50 articles about it. We met with low income customers who struggled to pay their pre Kemper electric bills. We met with Mississippi Power’s CEO who gave us a tour of the construction project to allay our misgivings. It created more...

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