Cleveland City Council on Monday approved a measure urging Gov. John Kasich and Ohio lawmakers to immediately reinstate Ohio's energy efficiency and renewable energy standards they put on hold for 2015 and 2016. Republican lawmakers are now considering freezing the standards at least three years or possibly permanently.
Lincoln Electric's utility-scale wind turbine is an example of renewable energy technology that Sustainable Cleveland 2019 wants to develop in Northeast Ohio -- and that Ohio lawmakers have made impossible with restrictive rules that have kept new development from happening. Cleveland City Council has joined the campaign to end the state's "freeze" on renewable energy development. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland City Council has done its part in a statewide campaign to bring back Ohio's renewable energy standards and energy efficiency mandates.
Council on Monday night approved a resolution asking for the immediate return of the state rules requiring power companies to help their customers use less power and to sell more power generated by clean technologies such as wind and solar.
Council's action follows a public information campaign that the American Wind Energy Association and allies launched a week ago claiming that consumers would save $3.4 billion over the next 14 years if the wind industry were not hobbled by Ohio's opposition to further wind development.
Lawmakers a year ago "froze" the renewable and efficiency standards at 2014 levels following a lobbying campaign by FirstEnergy and other Ohio utilities.
After a study committee of lawmakers last fall recommended an indefinite freeze, key GOP lawmakers in late April and earlier this month introduced legislation to extend the freeze either another three years, or permanently.
Gov. John Kasich, involved in his presidential campaign at the time, said a permanent freeze would be unacceptable. At least twice during his campaign, Kasich told voters he supported wind and solar, though not the 2008 Ohio law that requires renewable energy to account for 12.5 percent of all power sold in the state by 2025.
A group of nine institutional investors, several of them religiously affiliated, with more than $15 billion in investments under their management, wrote to Kasich less than a week ago urging him to strongly oppose legislation extending the freeze because it will hurt the state and many of the businesses operating here.
The nine argued:
- "Ohio attracted $1.3 billion in private clean energy investment from 2009 to 2013 and was predicted to generate an additional $3 billion over the next 10 years." The two-year freeze has created policy uncertainty both for companies and investors that will erode the initial investments.
- "Ohio's energy efficiency programs were the cheapest and most cost-effective in the nation."
- One of the new proposed bills would limit Ohio's ability to develop strategies to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.
- "If Ohio is going to attract tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft to build data centers in the state, it must remain competitive with other states that are aggressively recruiting companies by fostering a clean energy economy."
The institutional investors who signed the letter were Calvert Investments, Friends Fiduciary, Region VI Coalition for Responsible Investment, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Western Province Leadership, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Congregational Leadership, Sisters of the Humility of Mary, Trillium Asset Management, Unitarian Universalist Association, and Walden Asset Management.
Each of the recently introduced bills to extend the freeze, Senate Bill 320 and House Bill 554, has had one introductory hearing, but further action at this point will probably be delayed until November.
Legislation of some sort must be approved by year's end or the original state standards approved in 2008 will come back to life on Jan. 1, 2017, because the freeze legislation passed last year was only a two-year freeze.
Cleveland opposed the two-year freeze legislation and a bill introduced a year earlier that would have effectively eliminated the 2008 law. The city in 2008 also set renewable energy standards for Cleveland Public Power.
Council's resolution notes that as of this year more than 100,000 Ohioans are working in "clean energy businesses" and that efficiency standards have saved customers about $1.5 billion.
In testimony delivered to Council's Finance Committee on Monday, Samantha Williams, a Chicago-based attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, argued that Ohio's cities must "step in and take a clear, unwavering position" on the issue as state lawmakers and the governor work through what appears to be "a disconnect."
"The stakes are considerable. Most notably, Ohio stands to lose investment dollars. Before the freeze, the state enjoyed an investment of $1.3 billion in the clean energy sector. Today, that has all but come to a halt with the uncertainty in the state energy law," she said.
"It makes sense for Ohio to leverage its strengths in manufacturing and position itself as a player in this new economy. Bringing back the state clean energy law is one step in the right direction. The current freeze has been two years too long, and we now need to move forward," Williams concluded.