Nuclear bailout repeal effort dead
'No path forward' for opponents of House bill 6
By Jim Provance / The Blade
Wed, 22 Jan 2020 18:01:44 GMT
link -- with images
COLUMBUS — Ohio's nuclear power plant bailout will stand as the group trying to repeal it is dropping its court appeals.
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts has filed a motion with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati seeking to dismiss its appeal and plans to do the same with the Ohio Supreme Court in another pending case.
The move eliminates any chance that an initiative asking voters to repeal House Bill 6 could ever reach the ballot after a nasty fight on the streets and on TV and radio airwaves prevented opponents from gathering the signatures needed.
“We couldn't see a path forward, so we just decided to withdraw,” said Gene Pierce, spokesman for the repeal effort.
A federal judge last fall refused to grant the group a temporary injunction to give it more time to gather the nearly 266,000 signatures it needed to put the question on the ballot. Determining that the issues raised were state constitutional questions instead of federal, that judge sent questions to the Ohio Supreme Court pertaining to the state's process for gathering those signatures.
In the meantime, the non-profit organization appealed the judge's rejection of its injunction request to the federal appeals court. Both avenues of appeal will now end.
“As a practical matter this is an indication that we are standing down from future petition activities,” Mr. Pierce said. “H.B. 6 promoters' $50 million of misleading advertising and thuggish counter-petition tactics have set a dangerous precedent and no doubt encourages similar future efforts to block Ohioans' right to challenge bad legislation through referenda petition.”
The state Supreme Court case revolves around whether the Ohio Constitution guarantees citizens a full 90 days to gather signatures to put a repeal initiative on the ballot and whether restrictions subsequently placed by lawmakers on that process are constitutional. Those questions will now go unanswered.
House Bill 6 went into effect as scheduled in October. Beginning in 2021, it will add surcharges to electricity customers' bills across the state to fuel a $170 million-a-year fund — $150 million for the two Lake Erie nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions and $20 million for five utility-scale solar fields, all but one in southern Ohio.
An FES spokesman declined to comment.
The Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor and Perry plant east of Cleveland directly employ about 1,400 people, but have been unable to compete economically against cheaper natural gas.
The law separately adds surcharges to support coal-fired plants in southern Ohio and southeast Indiana owned by a multi-utility corporation dominated by American Electric Power.
Without the bailout, FES, to be renamed Energy Harbor when it emerges from bankruptcy, had planned to begin the permanent decommissioning of Davis-Besse next May. Perry would have followed next year.
The repeal petition effort was met by a wall of opposition from groups aligned with FES' position, pouring millions into ads claiming Chinese interests were behind the repeal effort and the hiring of “blockers” to physically come between petition circulators and would-be signers.
In addition, opponents of the law contended that they were hampered by state law that required them to first get Attorney General Dave Yost's approval of petition language before they could gather a single signature. They figured they lost 38 days of their 90-day window as Mr. Yost rejected their first proposed language and then waited out the block before approving the second pass.