Provance reports that it’s back to the drawing board for those seeking to kill a new law steering $150 million a year to the owner of Ohio’s two nuclear power plants after Attorney General Dave Yost on Monday rejected their proposed petition language. The move means a delay in hitting the streets for the committee calling itself Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts [which FYI is supported by the wind and solar industries and associated interest groups]. It has until Oct. 21, the date the law would take effect, to gather at least 265,774 valid signatures of registered voters. If the petition effort is ultimately successful, the question would appear on the 2020 general-election ballot, which also will have a presidential election.
Mr. Yost, a Republican, determined that the petition summary language was not a “fair and truthful statement” of the law. He pointed to 21 various bullet points of the summary that he said inaccurately represented provisions of the law or omitted key information. For the repeal effort’s backers, believed to be led by competing gas producers [and the wind and solar industry supporters], the rejection means the loss of critical time. It must now gather another 1,000 valid signatures of registered voters to put a revised summary before Mr. Yost, who will then have up to 10 more business days for a second review. The campaign’s spokesman, Gene Pierce, said the group will turn around revised language within days.
"We plan to give Ohioans the opportunity to reject this ill-conceived legislation on the November, 2020 ballot," he said. Gov. Mike DeWine last month signed House Bill 6 into law. Should the law’s opponents meet the deadline to submit signatures to Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the law would be placed on hold until voters get their say more than a year from now. If a majority of voters say “no,” the law would never take effect.
House Bill 6 requires consumers to pay monthly surcharges — ranging from 85 cents for residential customers to $2,400 for big industrial customers — to raise $170 million a year between 2021 and 2027. Of that, 88 percent would go to FirstEnergy Solutions or its post-bankruptcy successor to bolster the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Oak Harbor and Perry plant east of Cleveland. The plants account for more than 4,000 direct and indirect jobs. The remaining $20 million would go to six utility-scale solar fields that have already received siting approval. Two are in Hardin County; the rest are in southern Ohio. The law would also impose separate surcharges through 2030 ranging from $1.50 per month for residential consumers and up to $1,500 for major industrial power users to support two 1950s-era, coal-fired power plants in southern Ohio and southeast Indiana that are owned by the multi-utility Ohio Valley Energy Corp.
The law’s supporters argue consumers will see a net decrease in their monthly bills as current statutory mandates for utilities to use more [albeit expensive] renewable power and reduce energy consumption are scaled back and then eliminated. Toledo Edison and American Electric Power customers would save $5.63 and $3.39 per month, respectively, in 2022, according to legislative staff estimates. Although some lawmakers took pains to note that “rate payers” would be paying the cost, not “tax payers,” Columbus attorney John W. Zeigler recently wrote to Mr. LaRose to argue that House Bill 6 provides for a tax levy and is, therefore, not subject to referendum. He cited examples where critics of the law characterized it as a tax.
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