Bipartisan HB 79 offers promising start in restoring Ohio utilities' energy-efficiency programs: editorial

Before going home for the summer, the Republican-run Ohio House of Representatives, by the narrowest possible margin, agreed to let electric utilities offer Ohio consumers optional energy efficiency plans. Ohio’s Senate, also GOP-run, should pass the proposal and send it to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.

The prime sponsors of the bipartisan measure, Substitute House Bill 79, are Reps. William J. Seitz, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, and Bride Rose Sweeney, a Westlake Democrat.

As cleveland.com’s Jake Zuckerman explained, the measure would allow electric utilities to voluntarily offer, and Ohio consumers to accept or reject, an energy-efficiency option with monthly charges capped at $1.50 per residential ratepayer, $7.50 per nonresidential ratepayer.

Specific terms of the pertinent programs would depend on what a utility chose to offer, but Zuckerman cited as possible examples consumer rebates for “free or discounted smart thermostats, refrigerators, air conditioners, LED light bulbs, and other power saving devices and appliances.”

According to legislative analysts, under the bill, an electric utility’s energy-efficiency options must include at least one benefiting “low-income residential customers with an annual income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.”

Ohio law for a time offered utility energy-efficiency programs, but they were repealed in 2019 as part of that session’s corrupt House Bill 6, the pro-utility bailout – signed by DeWine – aimed in part at underwriting nuclear plants then owned by a subsidiary of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.

The ensuing scandal, the biggest in Ohio Statehouse history, led to the federal conviction and imprisonment of former Ohio House GOP Speaker Larry Householder and former Republican State Chair Matthew Borges.

On June 26, HB 79 passed the House by only the narrowest of tallies, garnering 50 “yes” votes – the constitutional minimum for passing a bill in that chamber – to 46 “noes.”

Many House Republicans present voted “no,” while almost all House Democrats voted “yes,” including Minority Leader Allison Russo, of Upper Arlington, as did Republican Speaker Jason Stephens, of Lawrence County’s Kitts Hill.

As with many Statehouse votes recently, the split among House GOP members reflects divisions in their caucus between pro- and anti-Stephens factions.

All told, a majority of the House’s 67 Republicans opposed the measure, while the bill drew 22 “yes” votes from the GOP caucus. Also voting “yes” were 28 of the House’s 33 Democrats. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the state Senate, which won’t return to the Statehouse until sometime in the fall and would have to pass HB 79 by Dec. 31 for it to become law.

Among those opposing passage of the Seitz-Sweeney bill is Ohio’s unit of Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, whose family fortune originated in the oil business.

In counterpoint, among those supporting the bill are the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, the Sierra Club and allied environmental organizations, Zuckerman reported.

According to the OEC Action Fund, “The [bill] emphasizes smart technologies and measures that reduce both usage and peak demand. HB 79 includes additional consumer protections and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio oversight to ensure utilities implement the programs in ways that benefit consumers.”

That said, as Zuckerman pointed out, while HB 79 does cap what utilities can charge participating customers monthly for the program, it also allows utilities to charge customers for “lost distribution revenue” – the money utilities would have made if efficiencies weren’t “tamping down electricity demand.”

That’s among concerns, including the automatic residential ratepayer opt-in (customers would then have to act to opt out), cited by the Ohio Office of Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) for its opposition to HB 79.

In talking points provided to the editorial board, OCC said the legislation “defies common sense because it allows utilities to charge consumers for the electricity (energy) that the consumers did not use .... [so] the more an Ohio consumer can reduce electricity usage (through energy efficiency on their own or through the utility energy efficiency programs), the more the consumer will be paying for [utilities’] lost distribution revenues ....”

That’s a keen point, and why HB 79’s potential ratepayer savings shouldn’t be overstated. As OCC points out, a full repeal of HB 6 would most benefit ratepayers by eliminating the coal subsidies that tainted legislation is still charging Ohioans.

Nonetheless, House passage of HB 79 with bipartisan support represents another step away from HB 6, and a long-needed step toward giving Ohio’s ratepayers options.

 Limited HB 79 may be, but by the standards of the incumbent General Assembly and its environmental marauders, it’s a start.