About “Power Corrupts”
Your Electricity Bills Are Being Rigged
Every month, you pay your electric bill. What you don't see is how much of that money goes to bribery and political corruption that props up dirty and expensive power plants that should have been shut down years ago—all while cheaper and cleaner alternatives are pushed to the sidelines.
Welcome to the biggest corporate corruption scandal you've probably never heard of—one that's stealing billions from American families while deliberately blocking the clean energy transition that would lower your bills and help save the planet.
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What You'll Discover
This exclusive 7-part series features never-before-published insights from my research for "Power Corrupts: Cleaning Up America's Biggest Industry" (Bloomsbury, June 2025). Think of this newsletter as your preview of a much larger investigation—over five weeks, you'll get key stories that document utility corruption cases spanning decades and states.
The Schemes: How utility executives bribe politicians for billion-dollar bailouts of failing coal and nuclear plants—keeping dirty energy alive while strangling batteries, wind, solar, and other innovations.
The Clean Energy Sabotage: Why utility monopolies spend millions fighting energy innovations that would lower your bills and reduce pollution, preferring to milk subsidies from their outdated generators.
The Players: Meet the CEOs, lobbyists, and politicians who think democracy is for sale, plus the brave citizens who fought back against bribery and for cleaner, cheaper energy.
The Relevance: In this era of heightened anger toward political corruption, here are in-depth stories of bribery and racketeering within one of our biggest industries, as well as concrete reforms to block such scandals.
The Drama: FBI raids at dawn, death threats over coffee, suicides by indicted officials, corporate thugs stalking elderly volunteers—this reads like a true-crime thriller because it is one.
Why This Matters to You
While pay-to-play bribery certainly cuts our faith in business and government systems, this isn't some abstract policy discussion. Utility corruption reaches into your wallet every month through:
Higher electricity bills to pay for unnecessary bailouts of dirty power plants
Blocked wind, solar, and battery projects that would slash your energy costs
Tax dollars wasted on investigations and prosecutions
A rigged system that keeps you dependent on expensive, polluting energy instead of cheaper and cleaner alternatives
When utilities can buy politicians and intimidate citizens, we all pay the price—financially and environmentally.
About Richard Munson
I've spent decades investigating America's energy industry—as a policy expert on Capitol Hill, a clean energy advocate at nonprofits, and an entrepreneur in the private sector. I'm the author of eight books, including biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, and Jacques Cousteau.
But Power Corrupts is different. This isn't just policy analysis—it's investigative journalism exposing ongoing crimes that affect every American household. I spent years tracking down FBI agents, federal prosecutors, whistleblowers, and corruption victims to tell the complete story of how subsidy-seeking utilities are stealing billions while blocking our clean energy future.
What You Get
Every Tuesday and Thursday for 5 weeks, you'll receive:
Exclusive insights from my research
Behind-the-scenes stories that didn't make the mainstream news
Analysis of how this corruption affects your community
Actionable insights on spotting and stopping utility fraud
This is a limited series. Once these 7 issues are published, that's it. No ongoing subscription, no endless emails—just the complete story of America's utility corruption crisis. Newsletter subscribers will be the first to experience these revelations before the full book hits shelves in late June.
Your first installment arrives Thursday, June 12. Fair warning: you'll never look at your utility company the same way again. And if these stories leave you wanting to know more about utility corruption, the full investigation awaits when Power Corrupts publishes this June.
Preorder the book now to ensure you get the complete story as soon as it's available—and to help send a message that readers are hungry for this kind of accountability journalism.
Richard Munson is the author of "Power Corrupts: Cleaning Up America's Biggest Industry" (Bloomsbury, June 2025) and eight other books. Learn more at richardmunson.com
