Cobb EMC was already embroiled in litigation questioning the EMC's financial accountability to its members. In January 2011, Dwight Brown, Chief Executive of Cobb EMC and the organizer of Power4Georgians, was indicted by the Cobb County District Attorney for theft and racketeering. Power4Georgian Organizer Dwight Brown indicted Subsidiary Allied Energy Services received the contract with no competitive bidding process, in spite of the fact that it has no experience building coal plants. The ISS report also cited the questionable hiring of a fully-owned subsidiary of Cobb Energy to construct the $2.2 billion plant. Dwight Brown, the CEO of both Cobb EMC and Cobb Energy and also the founder and manager of POWER4Georgians, is among those under investigation. A grand-jury investigation is underway into charges of theft from Cobb EMC via a spin-off corporation called Cobb Energy. In April 2009, law enforcement officers searched the homes of top officials with Cobb Electric Membership Corp. Just one day before the withdrawals began, the Institute for Southern Studies released a report about possible corruption related to the project. GreyStone Power and Excelsior EMC also withdrew in May. In May 2009, Jackson EMC and Diverse Power announced they had left Power4Georgians because of the uncertainty over carbon emissions regulations. Co-ops leave amid questions of corruption The bill is backed by environmental groups including Appalachian Voices but received strong opposition from POWER4Georgians. The Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act would gradually prohibit Georgia coal consumers from using Central Appalachian mountaintop removal beginning in 2011. House Bill 276, proposed by Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur), would put a 5-year moratorium on building new coal plants and eliminate the burning of Appalachian coal mined by mountaintop removal by mid-2016. Georgia legislature proposes coal moratorium
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