Lawmakers tackle energy efficiency, want to label nuclear power 'green'

COLUMBUS — As heat bears down on Ohio, the House on Wednesday will consider a bill to encourage the state’s electric utilities to get back into enacting programs to reduce customers’ demand for power.

The bipartisan bill comes several years after the state largely did away with efficiency and renewable mandates on utilities as part of House Bill 6, the nuclear plant bailout law that became the center of a $61 million bribery scandal.

“We are using electricity at a high rate,” House Speaker Jason Stephens (R., Kitts Hill) said Tuesday. “This is the time of year when policies on power grid, energy, and how we power energy in Ohio comes to a head. ... That demand is extremely high,” he said. “I also think it’s vitally important that we do both sides. We have the supply side as well.”

On the supply side, the House will vote on House Bill 308, which will label nuclear power as “green energy,” a term not defined in state law. Supporters contend nuclear should qualify because it does not emit carbon into the air.

That was part of the argument in 2019 for having consumers bail out the Davis-Besse plant near Oak Harbor and the Perry plant east of Cleveland during the House Bill 6 debate. Ultimately, the subsidies never materialized, even though other elements of House Bill 6 survive today.

House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D., Upper Arlington) expects the vote on House Bill 79, the efficiency bill, to be a close one.

“It is certainly a priority, I know, for many in my caucus as well as Republicans,” she said. “It’s a good step forward in terms of energy efficiencies. I am hopeful, but I’m sure we’ll be counting every vote.”

She expects the vote on nuclear power “green energy” to divide the Democratic caucus. Even she is unsure how she will vote.

“There have been concerns by some of our members raised in committee itself,” she said. “I suspect we’ll have a split vote. ... I will probably make my decision [Wednesday].”

The bill is backed by the construction trades and labor because of the jobs tied to the plants. It is opposed by environmental watchdogs who argue that nuclear power is not the clean or renewable energy that the word “green” suggests, pointing to the pollution and safety concerns associated with nuclear waste and uranium mining.

House Bill 79, the efficiency bill, is sponsored by Reps. Bride Rose Sweeney (D., Cleveland) and Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati), the latter a longtime opponent of renewable and energy efficiency mandates on utilities.

Old policies that required utilities to meet incremental thresholds to add renewable power to their energy portfolios and push for reduced demand for electricity conjured up images of utilities selling their customers new technology light bulbs at a premium price.

This bill would encourage utilities to set up programs that their customers could voluntarily opt into to save energy. The utilities would apply to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio for program approval, with at least one program targeting lower-income customers.

The cost of such a program could not increase monthly bills by more than $1.50 for residential customers and $7.50 for nonresidential customers.

The bill would also limit the ability of a utility to try to recover revenue lost from decreased demand.

Both bills are among 32 slated for votes on the House floor on Wednesday, the last session day before lawmakers recess for the summer. The two energy bills would have to wait until at least fall for the Senate to take them up.

Among other things to watch on Wednesday:

• Final passage in both chambers of a $4.2 billion, two-year capital budget for construction, renovation, and technology projects across the state at K-12 schools, colleges and universities, parks, theaters, museums, playgrounds, and others.
• A possible attempt to jump-start Senate Bill 83, a controversial measure that Republican backers contend would crack down on “woke” and liberal biases on college and university campuses. The bill has languished in the House since its Senate passage a year ago.
• Senate Bill 94 that has been amended with the proposed Campus Accountability and Modernization to Protect University Students, or CAMPUS, Act. A reaction to recent anti-Semitic protests, it would require colleges and universities to adopt and enforce policies against racial, religious, and ethnic bias, harassment, and intimidation.
• House Bill 366, sponsored by Rep. Haraz Ghanbari (R., Perrysburg), to create a task force focused on organized retail theft operations and create the crime of theft by mail. The latter would range from a fifth-degree felony to a first-degree felony, depending on the value of the stolen mail.
• Another possible move in the Senate to try to write between the lines of the recreational marijuana law that voters approved in November.
• House Bill 531 to create the felonies of sexual extortion and aggravated sexual extortion through which someone online encourages the sharing of explicit images and then uses those images to blackmail the sender.