COLUMBUS — Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday that he will sign a bill that could be headed to his desk by week's end to put off the effects of the state's tainted $1 billion nuclear plant bailout law for a year.
“If the legislature presents me with this bill, and the bill has in it what I think it is, then I certainly would sign it,” the Republican governor told The Blade.
A vote in both the House and Senate on a delay could come as soon as Thursday, possibly the last day of two-year session. The bill would allow for the refund of any surcharges collected from consumers via their monthly electricity bills beginning in January, money that was supposed to fuel a $150 million-a-year fund to subsidize operations of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor and Perry plant near Cleveland.
It would also put off until April, 2022 the scheduled flow of that money to Energy Harbor, the post-bankruptcy successor to FirstEnergy Solutions and owner of the plants.
That buys lawmakers time while they consider the fate of House Bill 6, the law passed last year that is now believed to be the end product of a $61 million bribery scheme with Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. and related entities providing the cash.
“I'm someone who always prefers improvement to status quo...,” Mr. DeWine said in an interview. “If you wait for the perfect to be for it, you may wait forever or a long time... It's not the repeal that I asked for, but it is an improvement, particularly in regard to the audit and getting data to determine a question that has been debated: How much money do [the plants] really need to keep going?”
Former House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford) and three alleged conspirators outside the Statehouse face federal racketeering charges. They are accused of trying to launder utility cash through a non-profit corporation to help elect representatives loyal to Mr. Householder in 2018, elect him speaker in 2019, get House Bill 6 to the governor's desk, and then kill an attempt to repeal it at the ballot.
Two of the players have already pleaded guilty to racketeering charges for their roles in the scheme.
On Wednesday, the House Select Committee Energy and Policy Oversight voted 8-7 — with one Republican joining all Democrats in opposition — to approve House Bill 798, a delay bill sponsored by Rep. Jim Hoops (R., Napoleon), the committee's chairman.
But it's also possible the contents of that bill could be amended into House Bill 264, a separate measure dealing with the financing of public water and wastewater infrastructure projects that has already passed both chambers in differing forms.
A House-Senate conference committee charged with resolving the differences is expected to meet Thursday morning so that the bill could reach the floors of both chambers later that day.
Mr. Hoops said he was unsure which avenue would be used.
House Bill 798 no longer contains an emergency clause that would have allowed the bill to take effect immediately upon the governor's signature instead of waiting the usual 90 days. That could be an indication that the 99-member House doesn't have the super-majority of 60 votes needed to approve an emergency clause.
The emergency clause could have prevented the surcharges from being collected in the first place beginning in January. Instead, the bill authorizes refunds of any surcharges collected over the first three months.
“It's a scandal. Yes, it was,” Mr. Hoops said. “But I'm trying to separate the policy and what happened here in the Statehouse and in committee versus what happened outside the Statehouse in back rooms somewhere.”
Rep. Michael O’Brien (D., Warren), a committee member, tried unsuccessfully to repeal House Bill 6 altogether.
“Failing to repeal House Bill 6 tells big corporations that it’s okay to buy off politicians in Ohio. It’s not,” he said. “It’s unconscionable that Republicans continue to fight harder for this tainted legislation and their disgraced former speaker than they do for the taxpayers who are going to have to foot the bill for this corrupt legislation.”
Mr. DeWine said the scandal undermined public confidence.
“I think there's still a stench with [House Bill 6]...” he said. “The only way you get rid of that is by repealing it, and then you decide where to go.”
First Published December 16, 2020, 6:01 p.m.
