Recent news

Millions were spent to overturn Ohio's nuclear bailout law and keep it. We'll never know who paid.

COLUMBUS - "Friday marked the first time anyone involved in the nasty, expensive fight over Ohio's energy grid was required to disclose any details about their donors or how that money was spent.

That disclosure comes long after the debate over House Bill 6 ended.

Starting Jan. 1, 2021, Ohioans will have a new fee on their electric bills to pay for nuclear energy, coal plants and some solar projects. Meanwhile, subsidies for renewable energy and energy efficiency will fade. 

In the end, many of the groups involved in the clash will never report specifics about who donated money to their efforts. That's because state and federal laws do not require disclosure."

- Jessie Balmert, Cincinnati Enquirer

read more

House Bill 6 referendum effort is dead after group drops lawsuit appeal

Remembering James Thindwa

OCA Canvasser Jen Mendoza and James Thindwa at Hudson Bay Canvasser Conference 

Final approval needed to move forward on Icebreaker Wind Project

Click the photo for the full report about the Icebreaker Wind project, provided by LEEDCo. 

"In 2009, the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo), a nonprofit public-private partnership, was founded with a vision to make Ohio’s leadership potential into a reality by building a sustainable off-shore wind energy industry in the Great Lakes. Since then, LEEDCo has worked to develop Icebreaker Windpower, Inc., a 6-turbine demonstration wind farm off the Lake Erie coast.

The Icebreaker Wind project is the first of its kind: The first offshore wind facility in the Great Lakes, the first freshwater wind farm in North America, and only the second offshore wind project in the entire US.[2]

Studies conducted by government agencies and research institutions and exhaustive regulatory reviews have shown that the projected economic advantages and minimal environmental impact surpass expectations. In addition to improving Ohio’s air quality, Icebreaker Wind would address our growing vulnerability to climate change and advance Ohio’s position in the clean energy economy. This includes over 500 new jobs, an estimated 253 million in economic impact for the region over the life of the project and an introduction into the multi-billion-dollar offshore wind industry. [2] LEEDCo has also made it an objective to seek out companies within Ohio’s existing manufacturing base to become a part of this new offshore wind energy supply chain.[3] Simply put, with Icebreaker Wind, Ohio would be a national competitor in this rapidly growing market.

For these reasons and more, Icebreaker Wind is publicly supported by a diverse range of groups, including elected officials and local governments, labor and trade unions, universities and business networks, and foundations and nonprofit organizations. Green Energy Ohio has been a strong supporter of LEEDCo and Icebreaker Wind for many years and has provided letters of support in several public and government forums."

-- Green Energy Ohio  

read more

Stanford engineers develop state-by-state plan to convert U.S. to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050

"The study is published in the online edition of Energy and Environmental Sciences. An interactive map summarizing the plans for each state is available at www.thesolutionsproject.org.

Jacobson and his colleagues started by taking a close look at the current energy demands of each state, and how those demands would change under business-as-usual conditions by the year 2050. To create a full picture of energy use in each state, they examined energy usage in four sectors: residential, commercial, industrial and transportation.

For each sector, they then analyzed the current amount and source of the fuel consumed – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables – and calculated the fuel demands if all fuel usage were replaced with electricity. This is a significantly challenging step – it assumes that all the cars on the road become electric, and that homes and industry convert to fully electrified heating and cooling systems. But Jacobson said that their calculations were based on integrating existing technology, and the energy savings would be significant."

-- Mark Z. Jacobson and colleagues, Stanford News

read more

see the full report

Ohio Supreme Court agrees to weigh in on House Bill 6 referendum lawsuit

COLUMBUS — "If Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts is given additional time, another question is whether they should get less than 38 days because their initial proposed ballot summary -- a succinct explanation of the proposal provided to potential petition signers -- was rejected by Attorney General Dave Yost. Yost approved revised ballot summary language a couple weeks later.

The Supreme Court wasn’t required to accept Sargus’ request. But on Tuesday, the court – without comment – agreed to hear it. Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts will now have 40 days to file a brief arguing its case, after which the court will schedule oral arguments from each side and issue its opinion.

It’s unclear what the court’s opinion will be. Three justices – Pat DeWine, Pat Fischer, and Judith French – have recused themselves from the case, meaning three state appeals court judges will be temporarily seated in their place."

— Jeremy Pelzer, cleveland.com

read more

“Blocker” avoids conviction in clash with House Bill 6 petition circulator

COLUMBUS -- "A woman accused of smacking a cellphone from the hands of a man gathering signatures on a petition in Dublin avoided a criminal-damaging conviction by paying a bond forfeiture on the misdemeanor offense.

Stinner Wimberly Shine, 51, of the East Side, on Monday agreed to pay a $150 bond forfeiture in the case, Franklin County Municipal Court records show.

'A bond forfeiture, in a nutshell, involves a defendant paying a bond in exchange for not having to enter a guilty plea to the charge,' Lindsay Weisenauer, a spokeswoman for city of Dublin, wrote in an email.

The deal was offered to her by Dublin Prosecutor Marty Nobile, she said, because the victim, Harold Chung, of Las Vegas, wasn’t available for Monday’s hearing."

-- John Futty, The Columbus Dispatch

read more

The media was on our side

House Bill 6 was supposed to be easy to pass. In the end it took our opposition an extra month and a huge effort to win by just one vote. The media was on our side. The public was on our side. The strength of our members and power of grassroots organizing almost defeated the Goliath of greed and corruption.

It is simply astonishing to see the sheer number of articles, commentary and editorials published against House Bill 6. Not only while the bill was being debated in the legislature, but even after Governor Mike DeWine signed HB6 into law, every major newspaper continued to report on how HB6 is a giant leap backward for Ohio:

FirstEnergy corrupts democracy with gifts

FirstEnergy spent millions on advertisements, lobbying and charitable giving to ensure the passage of House Bill 6, corrupting every branch of state government.

Supreme Court

The fate of FirstEnergy's bailout of its struggling nuclear and coal plants may rest in the hands of the Ohio Supreme Court.

But six of the seven justices sitting on the court have received campaign cash from the utility at some point in their judicial careers.

FirstEnergy’s PAC contributed more than $78,000 to state Supreme Court candidates since 2010.

source: Toledo Blade

Executive Branch

FirstEnergy gave nearly $23,000 to the campaign and inaugural celebration of Governor Mike DeWine. FirstEnergy also was among DeWine’s top campaign contributors in each of his last three elections (for governor and attorney general).

.

Both Ohio’s Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost received money from FirstEnergy and other utility companies that supported HB 6. FirstEnergy ranked amongst LaRose’s top campaign donors with contributions totalling $25,408. It’s unsurprising, then, that these officials responsible for approving the HB 6 referendum effort would take their time in doing so.

Ohio General Assembly

FirstEnergy poured more than $400,000 into state legislative campaigns during the 2017-18 election cycle that helped create the General Assembly that passed HB6.

source: Toledo Blade

Charitable giving 

on Tuesday, the Energy and Policy Institute released a report, Strings Attached, that notes numerous cases in which recipients of gifts from utilities or their parent corporations provided legislative testimony or regulatory comments favorable to companies’ interests.

FirstEnergy uses philanthropy specifically to manipulate politics, policies and regulation.

Strings Attached: How utilities use charitable giving to influence politics and increase investor profits

"Other non-profit organizations have also received funding from FirstEnergy and backed proposals to bail out the utility’s coal and nuclear power plants.

In 2019, Laura Jones, the executive director of Leadership Ashtabula, provided testimony in support of the bill that bailed out the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants in Ohio, which are now operated by the bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions. 

Leadership Ashtabula also submitted comments to FERC supporting Perry’s 2017 bailout proposal. The group received $4,000 from the FirstEnergy Foundation in 2017. 

Beth Hannam, executive director of the Sandusky County Economic Development Corporation (SCEDC), testified in support of the 2019 bailout bill. The SCEDC received $3,000 from FirstEnergy Foundation in 2017.

A metadata analysis found the name of an outside lobbyist for FirstEnergy Solutions at the Dewey Square Group listed as the “author” of Hannam’s testimony. 

Hans Rosebrook, for FirstEnergy Corp., serves on the SCEDC’s board of directors and capital campaign and strategic plan committee.  
Applicants for grants from the FirstEnergy Foundations are encouraged to contact the local external affairs manager for FirstEnergy for their community. The company’s external affairs managers serve in leadership roles in some of the nonprofits the foundation funds."

-- The Energy and Policy Institute

read more

download the full report