Suddes writes:
Why such big stakes over a bill that does indeed have pluses and minuses – for the consumer as well as for the environment? (Keep in mind that this “environmental” bill will subsidize two coal-fueled power plants, one of them in Indiana.)
It's hard to see the pluses for the minuses. $1.1 billion in bailouts paid for by surcharges on ratepayer electric bills by all Ohioans (even those not in FirstEnergy service areas!), to prop up economically failed, dangerously age-degraded atomic reactors at Davis-Besse and Perry, as well as those old, dirty coal burners he mentions, is not a plus for consumers nor the environment.
Even the small amount of subsidy for solar projects that already had been approved is way too little good, to justify the way too much bad, in HB6.
To the contrary, HB6 guts Ohio's renewable portfolio standand, as well as its quite effective energy efficiency requirements, that have already saved Ohioans many hundreds of millions of dollars, averting the waste of pricey energy.