By John Stang
The Ohio General Assembly unanimously voted this week to repeal the $1.1 billion subsidy it approved almost two years ago for the financially struggling Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear reactors.
The Ohio Senate passed House Bill 128 33-0 on Wednesday, and the House passed it 89-0 on Thursday. The bill, sponsored by Republican Reps. Dick Stein and James Hoops, eliminates an annual $150 million subsidy to the two reactors through 2028. Former FirstEnergy subsidiary Energy Harbor operates the reactors.
That subsidy was supposed to be paid with a rate hike from $0.85 per month for a home up to $2,400 per month for a large industrial business. All Ohio ratepayers must pay the rate hike, regardless of whether they are FirstEnergy Corp. customers.
The General Assembly approved that subsidy in 2019 under the controversial House Bill 6, which is the center of a $60 million bribery scandal.
All this traces back to last summer when then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R), three lobbyists, and another political operator were charged in federal court for an alleged scheme to funnel and launder $60 million from FirstEnergy to pass HB 6 to prevent planned closures by May 2021 of the financially troubled Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants. The plants were owned by a bankrupt FirstEnergy subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions, which has since become the stand-alone company Energy Harbor.
So far, two of the five charged have pled guilty to the charges. Householder and two others have pled not guilty.
The money was allegedly used to support the elections of roughly 20 candidates in 2018 who became freshmen legislators in the Ohio House and successfully supported Householder becoming the House speaker. The FBI said the money was also used to pay bribes to Householder and the other four; to support the campaign in the House for the HB 6 bailout bill; and to finance opposition to a proposed, ultimately failed, ballot initiative to repeal the rate hikes.
Householder is no longer the speaker of the Ohio House, but his constituents reelected him to the body in November, when he ran unopposed.
