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 \u2014 and on the lack of transparency around the process.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0private organization that is exempt from Ohio\u2019s public records law, even though it performs functions that were previously done by the state\u2019s Department of Development and is funded by money that the state used to collect as taxes on the sales of alcoholic beverages<\/a>. (Now JobsOhio gets that money instead.)<\/p>\n The Energy Opportunity Initiative, whose funding will come from a\u00a0chunk of those liquor sales payments, offers grants and loans<\/a> to companies to boost the state\u2019s energy supply and access to it. But the initiative limits applications<\/a> 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 \u2014 an example of how Ohio gives preferential treatment to fossil fuels and nuclear energy and snubs renewables.<\/p>\n To date, JobsOhio has released scant information about applicants. Companies have expressed \u200b\u201csignificant interest,\u201d according to JobsOhio spokesperson Matt Englehart, who said the organization will not disclose additional details until it has executed agreements with companies.<\/p>\n The program\u2019s critics have condemned both the decision to block renewables and the lack of transparency around the $100 million fund \u2014 and some are concerned about potential ethical issues, too.<\/p>\n Columbus attorney John Kulewicz, a\u00a0candidate running for Ohio attorney general, filed an ethics complaint<\/a> late last month noting that Josh Rubin, who chairs JobsOhio\u2019s board of directors, is a\u00a0founder and managing partner of The CJR Group, a\u00a0firm that does lobbying work for American Electric Power\u2019s regulated utility business in\u00a0Ohio.<\/p>\n The utility stands to benefit<\/a> from a\u00a0bill<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cJobsOhio has said in various interviews that no ethics violations have been committed, but it has otherwise been quiet on the issue,\u201d Kulewicz told Canary Media. Public records laws don\u2019t apply to JobsOhio, though, he noted: \u200b\u201cJobsOhio has been exempted from most transparency regarding its activities. The inspector general will now investigate according to his own process.\u201d<\/p>\n Tammy Ridout, a\u00a0spokesperson for American Electric Power, noted that the company is currently prohibited from owning electricity generation in\u00a0Ohio.<\/p>\n \u201cAny suggestion that we would pursue actions contrary to the best interests of our customers is categorically false,\u201d Ridout said via email after Canary Media asked for a\u00a0comment on Kulewicz\u2019s 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. \u200b\u201cPutting our customers first and operating with integrity are our top priorities, and we take issue with any implication to the contrary,\u201d she\u00a0added.<\/p>\n Ridout noted that two other lobbyists at Rubin\u2019s firm work on behalf of the utility\u2019s regulated business, but not Rubin himself. As a\u00a0principal, however, he could still profit from the firm\u2019s overall lobbying work.<\/p>\n Ohio State Auditor Keith Faber, who is Kulewicz\u2019s opponent in the attorney general race, did not return Canary Media\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n An opaque process<\/p>\n \u201cIn today\u2019s 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,\u201d DeWine said when announcing<\/a> the Energy Opportunity Initiative last October, despite claiming to embrace an \u200b\u201call-of-the-above strategy\u201d for energy sourcing.<\/p>\n DeWine\u2019s reliability criticisms echo arguments from champions of a\u00a0bill that could make it more difficult to build any new utility-scale solar or wind farms in the state, even where they\u2019re not otherwise banned under a\u00a0law<\/a> signed by DeWine five years ago. The Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 294<\/a> in June, and it\u2019s now in the Ohio House of Representatives.<\/p>\n Of course, Ohio\u2019s energy demands aren\u2019t constant throughout the day, and advances in battery technology can store solar power for nighttime use. Even some data companies are now securing such \u200b\u201cfirm power\u201d from solar-plus-storage arrangements, as Google announced last week for a\u00a0project in Alabama<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ohio has made $100 million available for new energy projects in the state, but critics are pushing back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-779811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}