Typically, environmental legislation may be passed in Ohio once every few years. In fact, most environmental regulatory reform is done in small doses during the budget bill process. In the last two weeks, Governor Kasich has signed into law three separate bills that including major environmental regulatory provisions.
Ohio State Senator Kris Jordan (R-Powell) introduced Senate Bill 216 which would repeal Ohio’s renewable portfolio standard ("RPS"). The RPS requires that the state’s electric utilities provide 25% of their retail energy supply from advanced and renewable energy sources such as clean coal, wind, and solar energy by 2025.
Ohio enacted the RPS in 2009.
"If you build it they will come…" is the old saying from the movie Field of Dreams. It also could be used to sum up Ohio’s energy policy toward growing green jobs.
Policymakers believed using grant funds and passage of a renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS) would kick start demand for renewable energy in the State. If demand for solar
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Governor John Kasich has not revealed his true feeling regarding the Renewable Energy Portfolio (called the Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard in Ohio) which mandates a certain percentage of electricity should be generated from renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass and others. Ohio’s RPS was instituted as part of Governor Strickland’s major energy legislation- S.B. 221.
While the Governor has not
The AP is reporting that the Republican controlled House is expected to introduce legislation shortly that will strip all authority from U.S. EPA to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) under its existing authority in the Clean Air Act. This would specifically target the EPA’s endangerment finding and could possibly go as far as saying GHGs are not
With about ten days until election day races around the country are getting more heated. Ohio’s race for Governor is a study in contrasts on many issues. Energy policy is certainly one of them.
Governor Strickland has pushed the development of advanced energy projects aggressively during his tenure. Through passage of Senate Bill 221, he created the states
There is a very good article in the Akron Beacon Journal discussing the debate over the use of biomass as a replacement for coal. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the article (click here for full biomass article):
Burning Ohio trees at Burger sets fire to debate
Opponents are hot that
There was a lot of anticipation this summer about the scope of the energy bill coming out of the U.S. Senate. Would the Senate try and tackle climate change? Would it develop a national renewable portfolio standard?
The bill was released yesterday and the answer was "no" on both accounts.
The White House kept a glimmer of hope that
Ohio’s best hope for reducing its overwhelming dependence on coal for electricity generation is biomass. While wind and solar have significant benefits, it is unquestioned that current technology does not allow these renewable sources to be forms of base-load power generation.
Biomass does have that potential in Ohio, as is evidenced by the recent announcements
Here is a quick update on some of the important changes that were or were not included in the Ohio Budget (H.B. 1) that impact environmentally related issues and Ohio EPA’s budget:
ERAC Deadlines- As discussed in my previous post, the Ohio Budget included mandatory deadlines placed on ERAC for making determinations on appeals filed before