COLUMBUS, Ohio — In less than 48 hours, with little to no public notice, the Ohio Legislature voted to raise Ohioans’ utility bills to fund private corporations.
An amendment to House Bill 201 allows natural gas utilities to increase how much money they can charge customers to fund infrastructure investments that benefit private companies. Despite ongoing federal investigations into utility corruption and influence over Ohio’s energy policy, the amendment included overly broad language that fails to ensure the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) can provide proper oversight over how customers are charged and lacks any timeline for approval from the PUCO.
The Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund urged legislators to vote no on HB 201 and urges Governor DeWine to veto this legislation.
The following quote, in whole or in part, can be attributed to Nolan Rutschilling, managing director of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund:
“Ohio state legislators’ decision continues their trend of passing legislation that increases energy bills and gives more of hardworking Ohioans’ paychecks to the fossil fuel industry and investor-owned utilities for private investments. Yet again, legislators have put fossil fuel industry profits above the needs of Ohioans already struggling to pay their energy bills this holiday season.
“Eerily similar to amended HB 507 — the bill from last General Assembly that defined natural gas as ‘green energy’ and allowed fracking in Ohio state parks — politicians amended HB 201 halfway through the legislative process to tack-on the language allowing natural gas utilities to increase Ohioans’ energy bills to pay for private infrastructure costs. These tactics are contradictory to principles of a participatory democracy, and exclude all Ohioans but a few lobbyists from participating in the legislative process.
“Ohioans deserve elected leaders that fight to reduce energy costs through clean energy and regulatory reform, not those that sell them out to increase profit margins of powerful investor-owned utilities.”
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Contact:
Marisa Twigg
mtwigg@theoec.org
614-487-5837