Why House Bill 6 to bail out Ohio nuclear
plants is likely headed to passage:
Thomas Suddes
Posted Jun 30, 2019
https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2019/06/why-house-bill-6-to-bail-out-ohio-nuclear-plants-is-likely-headed-to-passage-thomas-suddes.html
The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant outside Toledo is scheduled to be shut down in less than two years if Ohio ratepayers do not bail out the state's two nuclear plants. (Peggy Turbett/The Plain Dealer, File, 2012)
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87 shares
By Thomas Suddes, cleveland.com
Predictions aren’t this corner’s strong point, but here goes: The General Assembly, barring the unforeseeable, will force Ohio electricity consumers to subsidize two northern Ohio nuclear power plants. That may not happen this weekend, or this coming week. But it will happen.
The only suspense: How much per month the subsidy bill, House Bill 6, will force each Ohio electricity customer to pay to keep open Lake County’s Perry and Ottawa County’s Davis- Besse nuclear plants, built by what’s now FirstEnergy Corp., but owned by the utility’s FirstEnergy Solutions unit, which plans to become an independent company.
Ohioans required to pay subsidies wouldn’t just be FirstEnergy customers, but also every Ohioan who gets electricity from DP&L, Duke or American Electric Power (AEP).
Some HB 6 backers claim that because the bill (depending on the version discussed) would cut some renewable energy, etc., costs that Ohio consumers already pay, it could make the nuclear subsidy, at worst, a wash for consumers – maybe even net savings. (Voters might want to get that in writing.) Still, these factors make HB 6’s passage a decent bet:
plants is likely headed to passage:
Thomas Suddes
Posted Jun 30, 2019
https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2019/06/why-house-bill-6-to-bail-out-ohio-nuclear-plants-is-likely-headed-to-passage-thomas-suddes.html
The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant outside Toledo is scheduled to be shut down in less than two years if Ohio ratepayers do not bail out the state's two nuclear plants. (Peggy Turbett/The Plain Dealer, File, 2012)
28
87 shares
By Thomas Suddes, cleveland.com
Predictions aren’t this corner’s strong point, but here goes: The General Assembly, barring the unforeseeable, will force Ohio electricity consumers to subsidize two northern Ohio nuclear power plants. That may not happen this weekend, or this coming week. But it will happen.
The only suspense: How much per month the subsidy bill, House Bill 6, will force each Ohio electricity customer to pay to keep open Lake County’s Perry and Ottawa County’s Davis- Besse nuclear plants, built by what’s now FirstEnergy Corp., but owned by the utility’s FirstEnergy Solutions unit, which plans to become an independent company.
Ohioans required to pay subsidies wouldn’t just be FirstEnergy customers, but also every Ohioan who gets electricity from DP&L, Duke or American Electric Power (AEP).
Some HB 6 backers claim that because the bill (depending on the version discussed) would cut some renewable energy, etc., costs that Ohio consumers already pay, it could make the nuclear subsidy, at worst, a wash for consumers – maybe even net savings. (Voters might want to get that in writing.) Still, these factors make HB 6’s passage a decent bet:
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* The Republican-run House has passed it – with some Democratic votes.
* The bailout is pending in the GOP-run Senate, which, after ending its Hamlet act, will pass
the bill.
* Gov. Mike DeWine, a Cedarville Republican, favors a bailout.
* Nuclear bailouts are underway in Democratic-run Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, arguably making bailouts cross-party.
The bill started in the House, led by Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford. Politically speaking, he owes FirstEnergy big-time.
To pass HB 6, Householder crafted it to (a) appeal to as many House members possible and (b) persuade other electric utilities to support, or at least not fight, HB 6.
As to (a), the House-passed bill is said to net out the nuclear subsidy’s cost by stripping renewal energy, etc., mandates from current Ohio law. As to (b), the House-passed bill would help AEP, DP&L and Duke extend Ohio customers’ subsidies (now set to expire in four to six years) of two coal-burning power plants – one in Appalachian Ohio’s Gallia County, the other in Indiana.
Trouble is, the Senate’s (currently proposed) rewrite of HB 6 pulls the rug from under House tweaks – so much that AEP no longer supports HB 6, it told the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee. If that’s the bill senators send back to Householder, he’d have his hands full trying to win House agreement in Senate changes. Likelier, he’d call for a Senate-House conference, but Senate-House relations appear less than cozy right now.
Not that the Senate’s version is pro-consumer: “Fundamentally the bill remains a bailout of aging nuclear power plants, at public expense, for bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions and its big Wall Street creditors,” Michael Haugh, of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, told the committee Thursday. The Consumers’ Counsel is the state agency that represents Ohio’s residential utility consumers.
But facts don’t necessarily kill bills. Some General Assembly members are all but duty-bound to side with contributors. After all, if someone takes you to the prom, you’re more or less expected to dance with him or her. Same thing happens in Columbus. FirstEnergy and Ohio’s other electric utilities are generous contributors to Statehouse campaigns. Whether your name is Fido or Rep. John Doe, it’s never a good idea to bite the hands that feed you. So legislators don’t.
And if you think otherwise, look at the Ohio Revised Code. Or agricultural pollution in the Maumee valley. Or the looming (and likely successful) bid by big retailers and plastic bag peddlers to forbid local governments from banning single-use plastic bags. Legislators may respect Old Glory and motherhood. But campaign donors they revere.
That’s why, at the Statehouse, when utilities and other big-ticket political players want favors, things can suddenly get ... “bipartisan.” That calls to mind what Louisiana kingfish Huey P. Long said. He likened the two parties to a limited-menu restaurant: “They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side. But no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen.”
* The bailout is pending in the GOP-run Senate, which, after ending its Hamlet act, will pass
the bill.
* Gov. Mike DeWine, a Cedarville Republican, favors a bailout.
* Nuclear bailouts are underway in Democratic-run Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, arguably making bailouts cross-party.
The bill started in the House, led by Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford. Politically speaking, he owes FirstEnergy big-time.
To pass HB 6, Householder crafted it to (a) appeal to as many House members possible and (b) persuade other electric utilities to support, or at least not fight, HB 6.
As to (a), the House-passed bill is said to net out the nuclear subsidy’s cost by stripping renewal energy, etc., mandates from current Ohio law. As to (b), the House-passed bill would help AEP, DP&L and Duke extend Ohio customers’ subsidies (now set to expire in four to six years) of two coal-burning power plants – one in Appalachian Ohio’s Gallia County, the other in Indiana.
Trouble is, the Senate’s (currently proposed) rewrite of HB 6 pulls the rug from under House tweaks – so much that AEP no longer supports HB 6, it told the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee. If that’s the bill senators send back to Householder, he’d have his hands full trying to win House agreement in Senate changes. Likelier, he’d call for a Senate-House conference, but Senate-House relations appear less than cozy right now.
Not that the Senate’s version is pro-consumer: “Fundamentally the bill remains a bailout of aging nuclear power plants, at public expense, for bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions and its big Wall Street creditors,” Michael Haugh, of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, told the committee Thursday. The Consumers’ Counsel is the state agency that represents Ohio’s residential utility consumers.
But facts don’t necessarily kill bills. Some General Assembly members are all but duty-bound to side with contributors. After all, if someone takes you to the prom, you’re more or less expected to dance with him or her. Same thing happens in Columbus. FirstEnergy and Ohio’s other electric utilities are generous contributors to Statehouse campaigns. Whether your name is Fido or Rep. John Doe, it’s never a good idea to bite the hands that feed you. So legislators don’t.
And if you think otherwise, look at the Ohio Revised Code. Or agricultural pollution in the Maumee valley. Or the looming (and likely successful) bid by big retailers and plastic bag peddlers to forbid local governments from banning single-use plastic bags. Legislators may respect Old Glory and motherhood. But campaign donors they revere.
That’s why, at the Statehouse, when utilities and other big-ticket political players want favors, things can suddenly get ... “bipartisan.” That calls to mind what Louisiana kingfish Huey P. Long said. He likened the two parties to a limited-menu restaurant: “They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side. But no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen.”
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Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.
To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-999-4689
Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the “Follow” option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com.
__________
HB 6 is good legislation that will preserve
Ohio’s carbon-emissions-free nuclear
plants: Letter to the Editor
Posted Jul 11, 2019
10
https://www.cleveland.com/letters/2019/07/hb-6-is-good-legislation-that-will-preserve-ohios-carbon-emissions-free-nuclear-plants-letter-to-the-editor.html
By Other Voices
Contrary to the nuclear-phobic rant of Dan Rankin’s letter to the editor (“HB 6 isn’t a clean- energy bill, it’s a bailout for utilities,” July 7), and Bernie Moreno’s paean to jobs whose existence depends on never-ending subsidies (“Ending mandate for clean energy would harm Ohio’s image,” July 7), House Bill 6, despite imperfections, is a good bill. Intermittent sources of power such as solar and wind cannot supply all energy needs; their growth, though desirable, will put strains on the electrical grid unless there is backup from other sources. Nuclear power plants, which emit no CO2, are therefore precious assets. Spending billions to retire them, leaving us with insufficient non-CO2-emitting backup, is hugely wasteful. If the subsidy to FirstEnergy is “corporate welfare,” what does one call the renewable mandate? Why were not those decrying the cost to consumers equally concerned about the cost of the renewable mandate to consumers? Eliminating that mandate is one of the positive features of HB 6.
The better solution, ultimately, is to enact a carbon tax that would price carbon-based fuel to reflect more accurately the externalized costs associated with carbon dioxide emissions. This is far better than politically favoring certain industries or technologies and lets not only and wind power but also carbon extraction, nuclear fission and fusion, hydrogen fuel cells, and other technologies compete for their proper roles in supplying power and controlling greenhouse gases.
Glenn Schreiber, North Olmsted
To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-999-4689
Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the “Follow” option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com.
__________
HB 6 is good legislation that will preserve
Ohio’s carbon-emissions-free nuclear
plants: Letter to the Editor
Posted Jul 11, 2019
10
https://www.cleveland.com/letters/2019/07/hb-6-is-good-legislation-that-will-preserve-ohios-carbon-emissions-free-nuclear-plants-letter-to-the-editor.html
By Other Voices
Contrary to the nuclear-phobic rant of Dan Rankin’s letter to the editor (“HB 6 isn’t a clean- energy bill, it’s a bailout for utilities,” July 7), and Bernie Moreno’s paean to jobs whose existence depends on never-ending subsidies (“Ending mandate for clean energy would harm Ohio’s image,” July 7), House Bill 6, despite imperfections, is a good bill. Intermittent sources of power such as solar and wind cannot supply all energy needs; their growth, though desirable, will put strains on the electrical grid unless there is backup from other sources. Nuclear power plants, which emit no CO2, are therefore precious assets. Spending billions to retire them, leaving us with insufficient non-CO2-emitting backup, is hugely wasteful. If the subsidy to FirstEnergy is “corporate welfare,” what does one call the renewable mandate? Why were not those decrying the cost to consumers equally concerned about the cost of the renewable mandate to consumers? Eliminating that mandate is one of the positive features of HB 6.
The better solution, ultimately, is to enact a carbon tax that would price carbon-based fuel to reflect more accurately the externalized costs associated with carbon dioxide emissions. This is far better than politically favoring certain industries or technologies and lets not only and wind power but also carbon extraction, nuclear fission and fusion, hydrogen fuel cells, and other technologies compete for their proper roles in supplying power and controlling greenhouse gases.
Glenn Schreiber, North Olmsted
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