COLUMBUS — It’s crunch time if lawmakers plan to get a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine to rescue Ohio’s two nuclear power plants before they go home for the summer.
The chairman of the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee said he hopes to soon roll out a revised House Bill 6.
“This is a complicated matter,” Sen. Steve Wilson (R., Maineville) said. “I continue to be optimistic, but we are going to get it right. My goal is to bring out a sub bill where there aren’t winners or losers.”
After finalizing a two-year budget this week, lawmakers intend to recess until fall. FirstEnergy Solutions has said it must decide soon whether to order fuel for its Davis-Besse plant about 30 miles east of Toledo if it is to continue generating power beyond May 31, 2020.
Davis-Besse and the Perry plant in Lake County east of Cleveland are credited with supporting about 4,300 direct and indirect jobs — each directly employs about 700.
The plants have struggled to compete economically with cheaper and abundant natural gas.
As passed by the House, the bill would add surcharges to electric bills across the state, ranging when fully phased in from $1 a month for residential customers to $2,500. That would fuel an annual fund of about $198 million through 2026 that would distribute $9 for each megawatt hour of power produced without emitting carbon dioxide into the air.
FES, or the plants’ successor owner after bankruptcy proceedings, would be in line to receive most of that pot with five utility-scale solar fields already approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board also in the mix.
The bill, however, would do away with Ohio’s current law requiring electric utilities to increasingly generate or acquire more of their power from wind, solar, and other renewable sources until they reach 12.5 percent in 2027 as well as the mandate that they gradually reduce energy consumption overall.
The latter component is key to the strategy of selling this bill as a net reduction in electric bills to Ohioans, something accomplished only if current charges associated with the renewable and efficiency mandates drop off the bills as the new Ohio Clean Energy Program surcharges come on.
Customers of Toledo Edison, a FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary, would see the greatest savings under this scenario, a net monthly bill reduction of $6.57 for residential customers compared to a statewide average of $3.68.
Mr. Wilson is no longer talking about separating the nuclear and renewable issues and dealing only with the nuclear aspect now.
“I’m trying to get a bill out that addresses all aspects of this,” he said. “That’s why it’s taking some time.”
He said he does not expect the complicated issue to be rolled into the two-year budget shortly before it’s sent to the governor.
Talks continued over the weekend as key Senate Republicans discussed keeping a mandate for renewables but reducing the benchmarks that utilities must achieve.
House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford) told reporters last week he’s not sure he would still have votes for passage.
“It would be very difficult if the mandates are not removed for our members to agree to it,” he said.
Corralling House votes will be the speaker’s problem, Mr. Wilson said.
“What the Senate will turn out is what we think is the best bill for the people of Ohio, particularly the ratepayers,” he said.
In written testimony submitted to the committee, Daniel Rogatto, manager of the mostly coal-fired Genon Avon Power Plant near Cleveland, said lawmakers didn’t come to its rescue as they are now talking of doing for nuclear.
“This bill, I believe, will destroy the level economic playing field in Ohio,” he said. “It will give a major competitive advantage to a few. When we had to spend multi-millions at this plant to make us air-emissions compliant, we did not reach out to the state to help provide dollars so we can survive. We had to do it on our own.”
While neutral on the total bill, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce again voiced worries about the cost associated with the renewable standards.
“As these mandates escalate, which they are required to do under the current law, so too will their compliance costs,” said Keith Lake, the chamber’s vice president of government affairs. “Ultimately, the cost of compliance gets more and more expensive as the mandates grow.
“Beginning in 2021, the mandated reductions — and thus the compliance charges — will start increasing even more rapidly year over year,” he said.
First Published June 25, 2019, 4:13 p.m.
