COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Senate Republican leaders Tuesday afternoon released a rewritten version of a bill that would freeze the state's renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates for three years.
What's new is that the standards would automatically kick back into place in 2017 and run for another decade.
Also new is the immediate elimination of a rule requiring one-half of the power generated by wind, solar and other renewable technologies come from inside Ohio. The 2008 law that set that requirement -- and that this bill would modify -- has led to the construction of more than $1.2 billion in wind and solar projects in the state. Elimination of the requirement would kill further development, say industry supporters.
Another new feature in the substitute bill is language that would allow consumers to opt out of utility efficiency and green energy programs if the cost of them exceeds 3 percent of what the cost of their electricity would have been without the programs. Industrial customers could also easily opt out, under the rewritten proposal.
The utilities would calculate the costs of the energy efficiency programs and renewable energy in annual reports to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, as they do now.
Sen. President Keith Faber said the automatic return of the program was Gov. John Kasich's idea. Faberr added that he hoped critics would consider supporting it.
"I can't imagine that they would be less in favor of this than the proposals they drafted and shopped around," Faber said of a proposal that surfaced Monday, authored by Sen. Frank LaRose, a moderate Republican from Copley Township and supported by three other Republican senators.
The LaRose proposal would have reduced the annually increasing efficiency benchmarks and added a cost cap on wind and solar power. The proposed amendments are not included in the new rewrite of the bill.
The governor last week reportedly threatened to veto the original version of Senate Bill 310, rather than sign it into law. Signing the bill as originally proposed would make him the first governor to turn his back both on renewable energy and energy efficiency standards. About two dozen states have such standards.
The original version, introduced on Mar. 28 by Sen. Troy Balderson, a Zanesville Republican, would have kept standards frozen until lawmakers voted to bring them back.
The rewrite also includes a 12-member legislative committee, as did the original, to study the issues.
The substitute bill ignores recommendations from the Ohio Consumers' Counsel and the Ohio Manufacturers' Association to hire outside experts to hear utility and customer complaints about efficiency and renewable energy programs to assist lawmakers in a review of such policies.
Nor does it address consumers' counsel and OMA concerns that the current law tends to tip the balance of power toward utilities and therefore needs a thorough review and not merely a freeze.
And it ignores an appeal from evangelical Lutherans that programs to reduce energy consumption and power plant operations are a Christian responsibility -- and crucial to combating global warming.
The bill instead puts the focus on cost.
"It has been, and will continue to be, the intent of the General Assembly to provide all electric customers in Ohio with reasonably priced electric bills. While it is the intent of the General Assembly to incorporate as many forms of inexpensive, reliable energy sources in the state of Ohio as possible, the General Assembly believes that it is more important to determine whether there is a need for unrealistic, unreliable, and unaffordable energy sources, including energy efficiency programs mandated by the government, that continually drive up the costs of electricity for electric customers in Ohio," the bill states.
Ted Ford, president and CEO of the Ohio Energy Advanced Economy, an advocacy trade group, said if passed and signed into law, the legislation "will systematically dismantle Ohio's clean energy law."
Calling the substitute bill worse than the original bill, Ford argued in a prepared statement:
"The current standards are working. As a result of the standards, the renewable energy industry has invested $1.2 billion to provide clean energy, and Ohio's investor owned utilities have reported that energy efficiency programs carried out in 2009-2012 will yield over $4.1 billion in savings for electric utility customers over 10 years."
Utilities, particularly FirstEnergy Corp., have campaigned against the energy efficiency standards, arguing they have cut into normal market growth as customers use less and less power.
Leila Vespoli, FirstEnergy's chief legal officer, took a question about the bill during the company's teleconference with analysts on its first quarter results earlier in the day, before the Senate released the substitute bill.
"I think from a perspective of saving customers' money in terms of energy efficiency requirements, I think it will come out positive," she said.
A Kasich spokesman Tuesday said the administration was aware of the substitute bill but would say only that "We are continuing to talk with Senate leaders."
The rewritten legislation is still scheduled for a Wednesday vote, with a similar bill about to begin hearings in the Ohio House.