COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is turning up the heat on state lawmakers who are considering whether to repeal House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout law that’s at the center of a federal corruption investigation that led to former House Speaker Larry Householder’s recent arrest.
Yost told the Toledo Blade Wednesday he’s considering legal action to block the subsidies House Bill 6 would create for the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants. The subsidies, which will generate $150 million a year via fees tacked onto Ohioans’ electricity bills, are slated to begin on Jan. 1.
“I’m hoping they get a repeal done. If they don’t, though, my office is preparing legal action and among the things we’re going to ask for is an injunction to halt the imposition of a surcharge, its collection, or its disbursement to the First Energy successor,” Yost told the newspaper.
A Yost spokesman confirmed his comments.
As previously reported by cleveland.com, Yost’s office has been preparing a lawsuit, a process that’s included sending letters to state lawmakers and to FirstEnergy, the plants’ previous owner. FirstEnergy acknowledged Yost’s investigation in a recent disclosure to shareholders. The plants are now owned by Energy Harbor, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary that was previously known as FirstEnergy Solutions.
Federal prosecutors have said FirstEnergy and its affiliates funneled more than $60 million in bribes to Householder and four allies to help secure the bill’s passage.
Householder and an aide, Jeff Longstreth, and three lobbyists, Matt Borges, Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes, were indicted last month. FirstEnergy has denied wrongdoing, and its executives have not been charged.
The state Senate is scheduled to meet next week for the first time since Householder’s arrest. Among the topics it will discuss is whether, when and how to repeal House Bill 6, Senate leaders have said.
As lawmakers consider repealing HB6, camps are re-forming similar to those that debated the bill while it was under consideration by the state legislature in 2019.
A coalition of environmental groups and competing utilities, including natural-gas companies, recently formed to pressure lawmakers to repeal HB6. The group, calling itself the Coalition to Restore Public Trust, recently announced plans to spend $900,000 in digital ads targeting voters in 22 state legislative districts.
“The potential injunction sought by AG Yost should serve as further notice to Ohio’s legislature that they must move expeditiously to remove this tainted legislation from Ohio law,” coalition Executive Director Mike Hartley said in a statement.
Meanwhile, county commissioners from Ottawa and Lake counties, where the two plants are located, on Wednesday called on the legislature to not repeal HB6 without a replacement ready to go.
Advocates for the bill, which included local elected officials and labor unions, said the nuclear plants, which employ thousands of workers, would have closed without a financial lifeline. They also said the plants provide a large amount of electricity without heavy carbon emissions like plants powered by fossil fuel. Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill into law last July.
”While we detest any alleged illegal or unethical activity before, during, or after the enactment of the legislation, we certainly believed the policy outcomes were of great benefit not only to our counties, but also to all Ohioans,” the commissioners said in a joint statement, according to Gongwer News Service.