Ohio has made $100 million available for new energy projects in the state, but critics are pushing back on the decision to bar renewable energy projects from accessing the funds — and on the lack of transparency around the process.

The JobsOhio Energy Opportunity Initiative was announced by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine last October. It is administered by the state economic development entity JobsOhio, a private organization that is exempt from Ohio’s public records law, even though it performs functions that were previously done by the state’s Department of Development and is funded by money that the state used to collect as taxes on the sales of alcoholic beverages. (Now JobsOhio gets that money instead.)

The Energy Opportunity Initiative, whose funding will come from a chunk of those liquor sales payments, offers grants and loans to companies to boost the state’s energy supply and access to it. But the initiative limits applications to projects for natural gas infrastructure and small modular nuclear reactors, even though solar and wind are the fastest and cheapest forms of energy to deploy — an example of how Ohio gives preferential treatment to fossil fuels and nuclear energy and snubs renewables.

To date, JobsOhio has released scant information about applicants. Companies have expressed ​“significant interest,” according to JobsOhio spokesperson Matt Englehart, who said the organization will not disclose additional details until it has executed agreements with companies.

The program’s critics have condemned both the decision to block renewables and the lack of transparency around the $100 million fund — and some are concerned about potential ethical issues, too.

Columbus attorney John Kulewicz, a candidate running for Ohio attorney general, filed an ethics complaint late last month noting that Josh Rubin, who chairs JobsOhio’s board of directors, is a founder and managing partner of The CJR Group, a firm that does lobbying work for American Electric Power’s regulated utility business in Ohio.

The utility stands to benefit from a bill introduced in May to let regulated utilities own advanced nuclear generation and include it in their rate base. If that passes, American Electric Power could become eligible for money from the JobsOhio initiative.

“JobsOhio has said in various interviews that no ethics violations have been committed, but it has otherwise been quiet on the issue,” Kulewicz told Canary Media. Public records laws don’t apply to JobsOhio, though, he noted: ​“JobsOhio has been exempted from most transparency regarding its activities. The inspector general will now investigate according to his own process.”

Tammy Ridout, a spokesperson for American Electric Power, noted that the company is currently prohibited from owning electricity generation in Ohio.

“Any suggestion that we would pursue actions contrary to the best interests of our customers is categorically false,” Ridout said via email after Canary Media asked for a comment on Kulewicz’s complaint and whether the company or its lobbyists had discussed the Energy Opportunity Initiative with DeWine, Rubin, or others at JobsOhio before the program was announced last fall. ​“Putting our customers first and operating with integrity are our top priorities, and we take issue with any implication to the contrary,” she added.

Ridout noted that two other lobbyists at Rubin’s firm work on behalf of the utility’s regulated business, but not Rubin himself. As a principal, however, he could still profit from the firm’s overall lobbying work.

Ohio State Auditor Keith Faber, who is Kulewicz’s opponent in the attorney general race, did not return Canary Media’s request for comment.

An opaque process

“In today’s market, it makes far more sense to prioritize natural gas and nuclear projects, which offer reliable baseload energy, frankly, rather than solar and wind, which are intermittent and not as reliable,” DeWine said when announcing the Energy Opportunity Initiative last October, despite claiming to embrace an ​“all-of-the-above strategy” for energy sourcing.

DeWine’s reliability criticisms echo arguments from champions of a bill that could make it more difficult to build any new utility-scale solar or wind farms in the state, even where they’re not otherwise banned under a law signed by DeWine five years ago. The Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 294 in June, and it’s now in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Of course, Ohio’s energy demands aren’t constant throughout the day, and advances in battery technology can store solar power for nighttime use. Even some data companies are now securing such ​“firm power” from solar-plus-storage arrangements, as Google announced last week for a project in Alabama.