By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — House Bill 6, the Ohio Clean Air Program (OCAP) recently passed by the state’s House of Representatives by a vote of 53-43, is designed to provide incentives to build and maintain clean energy resources in the state while reducing customers’ electric bills.

State Republican Reps. James Callender of Concord Township and Shane Wilkin of Hillsboro introduced the bill. “The good news for electric consumers is that for many, their bills would actually go down,” said Callender, in an Ohio House website post.

“This is because there are already charges on their bills in the form of a Renewable Portfolio Standard and Energy Efficiency Standard/Peak Demand. The new program seeks to offer an alternative way to encourage cleaner energy production in Ohio.”

“This legislation looks to Ohio’s energy future by investing in clean energy,” added Wilkin. “It addresses the global need of generating power and balancing it with a portfolio of supporting cleaner resources to meet the state’s demand.”

The bill will create a fund to which Ohio electrical generation facilities can apply if they meet certain conditions and can verify they produce no carbon emissions or move toward reducing their emissions, the post said.

Rep. Kristin Boggs (D-Columbus), who was on the Energy Generation Committee that considered the bill, opposes H.B. 6 although she supports including nuclear generation in Ohio’s energy portfolio.

“I was not a ‘no’ vote because I didn’t think that we should figure out a way to help keep FirstEnergy Solutions or help keep the Perry and Davis-Besse Plants open (H.B. 6 would provide subsidies to the two nuclear power plants, respectively near Cleveland and Toledo),” she said. “I very much think that is important to our future.

“A lot of what the proponents said about the bill smacks in the face of common sense. For example, Energy Efficiency programs. In our society, our electric consumption is not going to go down. We are using electricity for nearly everything that we do. The only way to drive down demand while you’re increasing consumption is to make those products more efficient.”

The H.B. 6 proponents are trying to poke holes in the idea of whether the Energy Efficiency programs have been effective, Boggs said. The utilities provided that they have saved $5.9 billion for consumers since their implementation. To qualify to collect $1 for the Energy Efficiency program, a utility has to demonstrate it is saving consumers $2.6.

“We had an opportunity to create a policy that would kick-start renewable energy growth in Ohio, support clean air, continue our jobs and energy efficiency programming, save the nuclear jobs at those power plants – and we fell drastically short of that,” Boggs said.

However, Ohio’s Electric Cooperative and Buckeye Power support the passage of H.B. 6, according to spokesman Patrick Higgins. “The legislation will go a long way in providing economic certainty to all the investing companies in Ohio Valley Electric Corporation and preserve jobs in southeast Ohio.

“H.B. 6 power generation in the state while recognizing the need to maintain Ohio’s reliable base generation assets. We look forward to the successful passage of H.B. 6.”

As of June 6, the legislation has been introduced into the state Senate and is in its Energy and Public Utilities Committee.