Ohio legislature must do away with no refund law as part of HB 6 repeal Thomas Suddes, Guest Columnist © Photo courtesy of Thomas Suddes Thomas Suddes, Columnist
Ohio’s General Assembly continues to dither over House Bill 6, the 2019 law to bail out the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants once owned by FirstEnergy Corp. They are now owned by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, an independent company, Energy Harbor Corp., also based in Akron.
Legislators have introduced at least six bills to repeal all of parts of HB 6. (The Senate passed a partial HB 6 repeal bill Wednesday.)
HB 6, as passed, then signed by Gov. Mike DeWine, would suck an estimated $150 million a year from the checkbooks of Ohio electricity customers. And that’s a minimum, because of many other pro-utility sweeteners in HB 6. (Senate Bill 44, passed Wednesday, would abolish the $150 million in customer charges.)
Abuses heaped on Ohio ratepayers have a long and unshakable history: Thomas Suddes
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Ohio legislature must do away with no refund law as part of HB 6 repeal
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Politically, the two-year state budget Gov. Mike DeWine proposed Monday is a thing of beauty: Thanks to federal aid, Ohio in the run-up to DeWine’s 2022 re-election campaign should be able to spend more without raising taxes and without tapping Ohio’s rainy-day fund.
DeWine, as part of his plan, wants to spend $50 million to pay for a promotional campaign to encourage people to move to Ohio. With all due respect to the governor, good luck with that.
DeWine is asking the General Assembly to boost Ohio’s General Revenue Fund spending, estimated at $34.2 billion this fiscal year, by 3.4%, to $35.4 billion, for the fiscal year that will begin July 1. (For the 12 months that ended in December, the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers rose 1.4%.)