Renewable energy was casualty of alleged corruption scheme

Repeal of HB 6 would address only part of Ohio's recent actions to slow renewable energy advances

A complete repeal is needed as a minimum to undo the bill’s gutting of the clean energy standards, advocates say.

Ohio Statehouse

By Kathiann M. Kowalski

This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism.  

Both Republican and Democratic Ohio lawmakers are pushing to repeal the state’s nuclear bailout bill after this week’s release of a federal criminal complaint against House Speaker Larry Householder and others. Clean energy advocates say that would be a start, but more is needed to address eight years of lawmakers’ actions to slow the growth of renewables in the state.

The complaint alleges a $60 million bribery and conspiracy scheme that led to the passage of House Bill 6 last summer, followed by the defeat of a referendum effort to give voters a say on the bill. Amounts involved are about 20 times more than amounts that could be tracked through public documents.

HB 6 is primarily known as a “nuclear bailout” for providing six years of subsidies for the FirstEnergy Solutions/Energy Harbor nuclear power plants in Ohio totaling roughly a billion dollars, but it also gutted the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, and provided bailouts for two 1950s-era coal plants in Ohio and Indiana.

And while Gov. Mike DeWine has recently shifted his position from defending HB 6 to saying he wants to “repeal and replace” it, legislators from both parties say the whole thing should be thrown out. DeWine has said his office had no involvement in the alleged scheme. Yet he signed the law within hours after Householder secured its passage last summer.

Whether due to actual or perceived corruption, HB 6 “is a corrupt piece of legislation. All of it — not just part of it,” said Rep. Mike Skindell, D-Lakewood. “Therefore, the entire thing needs to be repealed. … That is one step in restoring the confidence of the citizens which was broken because of this corrupt process.”

“Those of us who are free-market conservatives are against the bill. Those of us who care about consumers and predatory pricing are against the bill. And it’s why those of us who want more renewable energy, not less, are against the bill,” said Rep. Laura Lanese, R-Grove City.

“Ohioans deserve an immediate and full repeal of House Bill 6 in order to restore the public’s trust in the legislative process, and also to get Ohio’s clean energy future restarted,” said Miranda Leppla, vice president of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund. “There is simply no room to consider anything less than a full repeal of this bill, as it is corrupt to the very core. Ohio lawmakers should consider what policies are best for Ohioans, without the corrupt influence of pay-to-play politicians and lobbyists working to influence their decisions.”

“I think this fiasco of HB 6 is just symbolic of the pay-to-play culture that has been in operation for a decade or more,” said Steve Melink, founder and CEO of Melink Corporation in Cincinnati. An analysis of lawful, reported campaign contributions from the utility, nuclear and coal industries in Ohio shows substantial increases in election years after a competitive generation market finally began developing in the state.

Efforts to give preferences to FirstEnergy and utility and fossil fuel interests didn’t start with HB 6. Bailout proposals have been on the table since at least 2014. And efforts to limit or repeal Ohio’s clean energy standards have been underway since at least 2012. A 2014 law imposed a two-year “freeze,” and then former Gov. John Kasich vetoed another bill to erode the standards. Other bills for nuclear and fossil subsidies and for weakening the standards were proposed in 2017 and 2018.

And then Householder was elected.

HB 6 “was much more than a bailout for uneconomic nuclear and coal plants. It was an attack on renewable energy and energy efficiency that First Energy, and its allies in the legislature, had been pushing for years,” said J.R. Tolbert, managing director for Advanced Energy Economy’s national business group. 

What more is needed?

“Ohio has some fundamental changes that need to be made to get back on track in our fight against climate change,” Leppla said. “These include fixing our wind setbacks, prioritizing efficiency as a money- and energy-saving resource, and fixing our power siting board process to ensure renewables have an even playing field.”

Removing a 2014 provision that tripled property line setbacks for wind turbines “is the very first change that has to happen” after a full repeal of HB 6, said Sandy Buchanan, executive director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“When the rules changed, it essentially froze the number of wind projects,” said IEEFA data analyst Seth Feaster. That caused communities to miss out on revenues, more financial stability, better credit ratings and indirect job benefits, he and Buchanan noted. Meanwhile, a lot of wind projects moved to other states that were more welcoming.

The constant push to limit or repeal the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standards has also hurt, Melink noted. The portfolio standards act as incentives to attract and develop clean energy and other businesses that want renewable energy by setting enforceable targets, which the market then moves to meet, he said.

“A totally unregulated market is too open to the kinds of things that we’re witness to with HB 6,” Melink said. “Setting standards and rules is a good thing.”

“Businesses need some certainty that before they make investments to grow their businesses, that there are good laws that will be in existence for some period of time — that we’re not going to be going back and forth every year or two years, changing our minds about these things,” Melink continued. “No company is going to make a major investment to grow a clean energy economy with that scenario.”

Other concerns focus on how regulators and the courts have applied the state’s energy laws, including provisions that currently limit or preclude refunds of unlawful charges. 

Even before HB 6 passed, for example, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio allowed a credit support charge. The Supreme Court of Ohio found that the charge was unlawful, but declined to make FirstEnergy refund charges to consumers. A delayed repeal of HB 6 could also let utilities collect charges under the law.

“FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions should not be allowed to financially gain from the poisoned fruits of a crooked tree,” said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center. “If the U.S. Department of Justice’s allegations of corruption are proven true, then the mandatory rate increase imposed by House Bill 6 on Ohio consumers should be invalidated, and FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions/Energy Harbor should be required to disgorge their financial gains and refund those excess charges to consumers.”

Other pending legislation could make matters even more challenging for renewables. House Bill 246, for example, “does little to address the serious issues plaguing the PUCO and [Ohio Power Siting Board]’s opaque and inconsistent processes, especially as it relates to siting renewable energy projects in Ohio,” Leppla said. The bill could also make the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel more subject to political sway.

One or more bills to repeal House Bill 6 are being introduced next week, Skindell and Lanese said. But that repeal of House Bill 6 is not yet assured.

“Given the press of other business, repealing HB 6 is not a good idea because it would result in a rate increase for all Ohio ratepayers,” said House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati. Seitz has pushed to limit or repeal Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards since at least 2013. He and other House leaders have issued a joint statement saying they are reviewing the federal allegations and do not have knowledge of other representatives’ involvement.

“Repealing HB 6 doesn't solve all of the challenges faced by clean energy companies or corporations trying to meet their sustainability targets in Ohio, but it's a good start,” Tolbert said.

“We need to start from scratch,” said Sen. Stephanie Kunze, R-Hilliard. She added that the whole HB 6 process reminded her of baking a cake, in which supporters said “We’ll say that Ohioans want this cake, but really we want this cake, and you have to bake it for us.”

“We didn’t get a choice,” Kunze said.

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Cleveland, Columbus among 11 cities White House privately warns must take “aggressive” action against coronavirus

New red flags about the severity of the coronavirus outbreak come after Trump focused on upsides in televised briefing

 By Liz Essley Whyte, Reporter and Alex Ellerbeck, American University Fellow

 

This article about coronavirus aggressive action was originally published by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom based in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Deborah Birx, a leader of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned state and local leaders in a private phone call Wednesday that 11 major cities are seeing increases in the percentage of tests coming back positive for COVID-19 and should take “aggressive” steps to mitigate their outbreaks. 

The cities she identified were Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

The call was yet another private warning about the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreaks given to local officials but not the public at large. It came less than a week after the Center for Public Integrity revealed that the White House compiled a detailed report showing 18 states were in the “red zone” for coronavirus cases but did not release it publicly.

Increasing test positivity — an indicator that a community does not have an outbreak under control — should be expected in areas that reopened and grew more relaxed about social distancing measures, said Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage. He said the warnings and data from the White House should be made public. 

“This is a pandemic. You cannot hide it under the carpet,” he said. “The best way to deal with a crisis or a natural disaster is to be straight with people, to earn their trust and to give the information they need to make decisions for themselves and their communities.”

Birx told hundreds of emergency managers and other state and local leaders that they should act quickly to stem the outbreaks. Among her recommendations were to trace the contacts of patients testing positive for COVID-19 in areas where test positivity is going up.

“When you first see that increase in test positivity, that is when to start the mitigation efforts,” she said in a recording obtained by Public Integrity. “I know it may look small and you may say, ‘That only went from 5 to 5-and-a-half [percent], and we’re gonna wait and see what happens.’ If you wait another three or four or even five days, you’ll start to see a dramatic increase in cases.”

Birx said the federal government was seeing encouraging declines in test positivity in places like Phoenix and San Antonio but warned that the outbreak in the Sunbelt was moving north.

“What started out very much as a southern and western epidemic is starting to move up the East Coast into Tennessee, Arkansas, up into Missouri, up across Colorado, and obviously we’re talking about increases now in Baltimore,” she said. “So this is really critical that everybody is following this and making sure they’re being aggressive about mitigation efforts.”

It’s unclear who heard the warnings and was invited to the call, which was hosted by the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and closed to the press. Baltimore and Cleveland were two of the cities Birx warned were facing rising test positivity, but a spokeswoman for the Cleveland mayor’s office, Nancy Kelsey-Carroll, said they did not participate in the call. And Baltimore health department leaders didn’t know about it, agency spokesman Adam Abadir said in an email. That city today announced a mask mandate and new restrictions on indoor dining.

The test positivity rates may not have been news to some elected officials. For example, Pennsylvania already publicly reports that data by county.

Birx’s warning came a day after President Donald Trump resumed his televised coronavirus briefings. The president offered a rosier picture of the pandemic than Birx, focusing on examples of improvements in the fight against the virus, such as better treatment with the drug remdesivir.

Her call also came the same day that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor that he and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had insisted on greater data transparency in a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Schumer said they would push for legislation to “ensure that COVID-19 data is fully transparent and accessible without any interference from the administration.”   

And on Tuesday, former CDC Director Tom Frieden and colleagues released a list of data points they would like states to publish in real-time, standardized, to give officials and residents better information.

“It’s not just people who are holding office who need to make decisions,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, on a call with reporters. “The more that we can provide information to people to keep themselves and their families safe, the better off we’ll be.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Birx’s warnings, nor did it answer repeated questions over several days from Public Integrity on why it had not made the “red zone” report public. Birx said on the call that the weekly report had been sent to governors for four weeks. One staffer for a governor said his boss received only the section of the report related to his state, not the entire report.

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Utility's PAC targeted several NE Ohio elected officials with campaign contributions

FirstEnergy money flowed to Ohio politicians who supported Householder-backed HB6 

By Tyler Buchanan

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, addresses reporters. Photo by Jake Zuckerman

FirstEnergy Solutions said it needed a government bailout to continue operating. It still had hundreds of thousands of dollars available to donate to Ohio politicians.

The Akron-based energy company spent years working toward what would become House Bill 6 — passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in the summer of 2019.

The effort to pass that bill spurred a federal investigation that led to the Tuesday morning arrest of Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder and four of his political associates.

Federal investigators have alleged Householder organized a bribery scheme to accept $61 million from FirstEnergy in return for passing HB 6 and enriching Householder and his allies in the process. 

No other state legislator besides Householder has been charged with a crime, and U.S. Attorney David DeVillers of the Southern District of Ohio Tuesday would not identify any others that may still be under investigation. 

A review of publicly-available campaign finance data shows FirstEnergy’s political action committee (PAC) has contributed money to politicians throughout the Ohio Statehouse. The company has donated generously to Republicans and Democrats alike, from leaders to backbenchers.

Between 2017 and when HB 6 was signed into law in July 2019, FirstEnergy donated nearly $375,000 to 54 different state lawmakers. Of those 54, 41 voted for HB 6, just 11 voted against and two did not cast a ballot.

Additionally, FirstEnergy made initial contributions to a dozen other lawmakers after they voted for HB 6.

The company saved most of its largest donations for the bill’s sponsors.

State law sets campaign contribution limits for PACs donating to individual candidates at around $13,300 per reporting period. Many of the top HB 6 backers received donations close to this amount.

The bill was sponsored by Republican state Reps. Jamie Callender of Concord and Shane Wilkin of Lynchburg in April 2019. It passed the Ohio House of Representatives in May; the Ohio Senate (with amendments) in July; then the House concurred with those changes a week later.

Callender received a max donation of $12,700 from FirstEnergy’s PAC in 2018. He’s since received $6,000 from the organization.

Wilkin received $10,000 from the PAC in 2018, another $3,000 during the summer of 2019 and $2,500 more that fall after the bill was signed into law. 

The bill had nine Republican cosponsors in the Ohio House. Three of them took in five-figure donations from FirstEnergy in 2018: Jon Cross of Kenton, Brett Hudson Hillyer of Uhrichsville and Anthony DeVitis of Green. DeVitis, the assistant majority floor leader, took in the most cash: $20,415 in 2018, another $7,500 the same month as the Ohio House’s first vote on HB 6 and $1,000 later in 2019. 

Other state representatives received FirstEnergy contributions in the few years leading up to them sponsoring and voting for HB 6: Bill Reineke of Tiffin ($1,500), Bill Seitz of Cincinnati, the majority floor leader ($7,000), Nino Vitale of Urbana ($2,500), Don Jones of Freeport ($500) and Dick Stein of Norwalk ($2,000). 

All 11 House sponsors and cosponsors received at least one donation from FirstEnergy following the passage of HB 6. 

A similar pattern followed in the Ohio Senate, which saw four cosponsors: John Eklund of Munson Twp., Theresa Gavarone of Bowling Green, Sandra Williams of Cleveland and Lou Terhar of Green Twp. Williams is the only Democratic cosponsor of HB 6; Terhar later resigned in 2019 after the vote.

Eklund brought in $9,500 from FirstEnergy’s PAC in the two years leading up to HB 6 and another $2,500 later in 2019.

Gavarone received $1,500 in 2018, $1,000 in May 2019 and has taken in $3,500 more in 2020. 

Williams, a four-term legislator in the Ohio House before being elected to the Senate in 2014, has been a long-time recipient of FirstEnergy campaign cash. The assistant minority whip took in $10,000 in 2017 and a few thousand more in late 2019. 

Terhar received $5,000 in 2016, $3,500 in 2018 and $500 more two weeks before the Senate’s vote. 

Campaign records show many other representatives and senators who voted for HB 6 (but did not serve as a sponsor) received FirstEnergy money. 

In the House, for example, nine Democrats broke with their party to support HB 6. Five of them received FirstEnergy donations in the year leading up to the vote.

·       Rep. Michael Sheehy of Toledo ($500 in 2018)

·       Rep. John Patterson of Jefferson ($500 in 2018)

·       Rep. Jack Cera of Bellaire ($1,000 in 2018)

·       Rep. John Rogers of Mentor-on-the-Lake ($500 in 2017, $500 in 2018)

·       Rep. Tavia Galonski of Akron ($1,500 in 2018, $500 in 2019)

Three of the four others received donations after voting in favor of HB 6: Reps. Thomas West of Canton ($2,500 later in 2019); Lisa Sobecki of Toledo ($1,500 in 2020) and Terrence Upchurch of Cleveland ($1,000 later in 2019, $2,500 in 2020). 

Just three Senate Democrats broke with their party to vote for HB 6. Among them were Williams and Sen. Kenny Yuko, of Richmond Heights, the chamber’s minority leader. Yuko brought in $1,500 from FirstEnergy in 2018 and another $1,000 a month before the vote. 

Dozens of Republican “yes” votes in the House and Senate received contributions in the years preceding and following HB 6’s passage.  

But the most money from FirstEnergy — of either party — went to Householder. As a representative, he received $7,500 from the PAC in 2017 and nearly $18,000 in 2018. As Speaker, he received a max donation of $13,292 in November 2019 after HB 6 passed. 

In addition to specific candidates, the company donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to both political parties and to various caucuses.

Besides campaign contributions, the company spent millions of dollars to advertise and lobby in favor of this legislative effort, cleveland.com and other outlets have reported.

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This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.