Governor Kasich Signs Bill Freezing Ohio’s Clean Energy Standards

In what has become something of a pattern for him, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed SB 310 after a week of uncertainty on a Friday afternoon — what’s known as the “news dump.” It’s when you typically announce things you don’t want to get a lot of attention because weekends are a news black hole.

Why didn’t Kasich want to draw attention to this signing? Perhaps because SB 310 one more way that some officeholders in Columbus are trying to take Ohio back to the 19th century. It freezes Ohio’s clean, renewable energy standards, designed to encourage investment in energy of the future, for two years. Kasich himself supported these standards in 2011, which were passed by an overwhelming majority of the legislature in 2008.

And why not? There’s no downside and a host of upsides. They help create cleaner air and reverse some of the effects of global climate change, they bring down energy costs, they bring in investment money, and they create jobs — thousands of jobs — at a time when jobs in old, dirty energy like coal are disappearing.

Now Ohio is the first state in the U.S. to move backward on renewables. Clean energy is the future, and other states are poised surge past Ohio.

State representative Mike Foley, from Ohio’s 14th district on the west side of Cuyahoga County, has been one of the most vocal opponents of SB 310.

“It just makes no sense,” he says. “There’s no logical argument in favor of supporting this legislation. I disagree all the time with things the Republicans throw at us, but they usually try to come up with coherent reasons for what they’re doing. There’s no rational reason for this. It’s harmful for environment, harmful for utility bills, harmful to jobs. We had $6 billion worth of wind farms lined up, ready to go, and I’ve heard that investors are pulling back. It’s embarrassing for our state. We’re harming ourselves financially, and it’s putting more carbon in the atmosphere at a time when we know we can’t be doing that. Given the climate crisis, for us to pull back on energy efficiency and renewable energy is mind-boggling.”

Mike Piepsny, executive director of Cleveland-based Environmental Health Watch, points out that the impact of the bill will be greatest on constituencies Kasich has made it clear repeatedly that he doesn’t care very much about: urban poor and working people.

“It’s definitely going to hurt our poorest families,” he says. “Their utility bills will go up. By peeling away the infrastructure that encourages investment in alternative energy and [instead] investing in the current system, it’s going to exacerbate asthma, especially for kids in the inner city. Climate change is going to cause temperature fluctuations and extensive heat waves with more 100-degree days. The over-65 population is expected to grow from 12-21% by 2050. That’s a vulnerable population. It increases air pollution when we have those [hot] days, which impacts elderly and children most.”

He also mentions that there are real costs, including aging housing stock not built to cope with extreme weather and the medical (and human) costs of the exploding asthma epidemic.

Unfortunately, he says, climate isn’t one of those issues that galvanizes people

“Some [environmental] groups went down to Columbus to testify but they’re not hearing from regular people who have benefited from these [clean energy standards].”

Meanwhile, a bill is circulating in the Ohio House with a request for sponsors that would permanently repeal the clean energy standards — something Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald says he would definitely veto, as he would have vetoed SB 310 had he been in office.

With Ohio the first state to take such an action, undoubtedly serving as a test market for measures dirty energy interests hope to pass around the country, you’d think major environmental groups would be jumping in to support FitzGerald, who has been outspoken in opposition to SB 310. (In the week after passage of the bill and prior to the governor’s signing, for instance, he sent out a daily reminder of how many days Kasich had left to veto the bill before it automatically became law without his signature).

FitzGerald says the national environmental groups have been a tough nut to crack. “They each have their own interests,” he says. “And they like to back a sure winner, like Charlie Crist in Florida.”

Ohio’s race, on the other hand, looks like it will be a squeaker one way or the other. That’s something Kasich is undoubtedly aware of since he signed this job-killing, environment-harming bill without fanfare at a time when most people aren’t paying attention.

ecowatch.com/ohio-gov-john-kasich-renewable-energy-freeze/

 

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