Ohio House advances nuclear subsidy bill, ditching renewable components

[jpak]

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ohio-house-advances-nuclear-subsidy-bill-ditching-renewable-components/555486/

The Ohio House Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday passed a clean energy bill seen by many as a subsidy for FirstEnergy Solutions' (FES) failing nuclear plants.

Although HB 6 has the governor's support, the measure's fate depends on the compromises that Republicans will strike with free-market proponents in the Senate who are ideologically opposed to subsidies. The bill aimed to reward FES' Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants for their clean, baseload generation although cheaper natural gas and renewable resources made the plants uneconomic in PJM's wholesale market.

The House committee on Wednesday accepted an amendment to create a new tax on Ohioans to provide the majority of $190 million per year to the plants. The bill originally sought to also benefit solar, hydropower and other qualifying low emissions projects through a $300 million clean air fund.

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"The latest substitute version of Ohio's House Bill 6 drops all pretense of being a clean air program and now blatantly bails out FirstEnergy's aging nuclear plants and subsidizes Ohio's (and even Indiana's) dirtiest coal facilities," Dick Munson, Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Midwest clean energy director, said in a statement.

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