TO:
Kevin Aldridge
FROM:
Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz
DATE:
August 13th, 2020
RE:
Op-Ed Response
_____________________________________________________________________________
From his perch in San Francisco, it’s difficult to see what accurate insight guest
columnist Jigar Shah could bring to any examination of Ohio electric rate legislation (“How Bad
Nuclear Plant Bailout Legislation Got Passed”, August 11). The column is replete with errors
and glaring omissions.
The legislation in question – House Bill 6 – cuts electric rates for all Ohio residential,
commercial, and industrial customers by $2.3 billion over its ten-year life. This figure comes
directly from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission – Ohio’s non-partisan state agency that
analyzes the fiscal impact of every enacted Ohio bill. How is this possible, given that the bill
does extend a modest (85 cents per month per residential customer) subsidy (starting in 2021) to
the two Ohio nuclear power plants that provide 90% of Ohio’s carbon-free generation?
Easy answer: the bill eliminates or ratchets back other charges on customer bills that have
been in effect since 2009. More charges were cut than were added. It’s very nice of a selfdescribed West Coast executive of a “finance company that builds, owns, and operates
renewable energy infrastructure” to advocate for repeal of a bill that cuts electric bill costs –
what does he care if Ohioans pay more for electricity to line his already-heavily-subsidized
renewable pockets? But Shah won’t pay the higher bill – you will.
Other errors in Shah’s column must be corrected. His claim that the bill quashed “cheaper
natural gas and zero emissions renewables like wind and solar” is false. Renewables are not
cheaper once federal taxpayer subsidies are factored in. My rooftop solar array cost $16,000, but
I received a $5,000 tax credit, which reduced its net cost to $11,000. And while natural gas is a
cheaper electric fuel today than is nuclear, the Democrat Party and its Green New Deal advocates
have pledged to ban the fracking that has produced the large supplies of cheap natural gas. If
they succeed, gas prices will skyrocket and we will wish we had nuclear power as an alternative.
Nor is it true that House Bill 6 subsidizes a coal plant in Indiana. In fact, it caps the cost
of a previously approved cost recovery for Ohio utilities that own part of the Ohio Valley
Electric Cooperative – and caps those charges at levels lower than what the PUCO (Public
Utilities Commission of Ohio) previously approved!

 Preserving the nuclear plants independently makes sense:
1. They produce 90% of Ohio’s carbon-free electricity.
2. They have years of useful life left on their federal operating permit.
3. They provide hundreds of jobs and significant tax base for the two counties that
house them.
4. They provide a hedge against spiking gas prices if “Green New Deal” programs
to halt fracking and pipeline construction come to pass.
5. The subsidy is needed to allow them to compete on a more level playing field
with the lavishly subsidized renewable energy projects that intermittently
produce electricity and in any event require baseload plant backup.
While both then and now I favor more stringent auditing standards than were contained in House
Bill 6 to measure the plants’ need for any ongoing subsidy, we can make that change without
repealing the entire bill. That would only increase the rate cut already conferred by the bill.
Finally, as proof that San Franciscans are poor students of Ohio history, Shah falsely
claims that former House Speaker Householder was “once forced to resign in 2004 due to
corrupt activity”; he did not resign in 2004. He had reached the end of his eight-year term limit.
He was never charged, much less convicted, of any corrupt activity during his 2001-2004 tenure
as Speaker.
Ohioans eager to pay higher electric bills will heed Shah’s advice to repeal House Bill 6.
But I suspect that is a small number of people – unless you are a rent-seeking financier of
“renewable energy infrastructure”.