COLUMBUS — Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday shifted gears and called on the Ohio General Assembly to repeal the law that would provide a $1 billion bailout of two nuclear power plants on Lake Erie, given revelations about the alleged $60 million bribery scheme that led to its passage.
He said the process behind the bill's passage “stinks” and has tainted what he has said is still the good policy behind saving the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor and the Perry plant east of Cleveland.
“It is also clear, as I think about it, that no matter how good this policy is, the process by which this bill passed is simply not acceptable,” he said during a Thursday news conference about the coronavirus pandemic. “That process, I believe, has forever tainted the bill and now the law itself. While the policy in my opinion is good, the process by which it was created stinks. It's terrible. It's not acceptable.”
He called on lawmakers to repeal and replace House Bill 6 through an open process “that the public can have full confidence in.”
“Reasonable people can disagree about what that policy should be,” he said. “I've made it very clear for a long time that I think our energy policy in the state of Ohio must include nuclear energy, that plants that are here that are functioning should continue to function.”
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First Published July 23, 2020, 6:30 p.m.
