Michael Sokol, an electrical engineer with Bold Alternatives LLC, installs another panel in the large solar array being erected atop a canopy in the parking lot of First Unitarian Church of Cleveland in Shaker Heights on Wed. April 25, 2012. (Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer)
COLUMBUS — “Ohio Gov. John Kasich vetoed legislation Tuesday that would have allowed investor-owned utilities to avoid making renewable energy investments for another two years.
The bill would have effectively extended a freeze on renewable-energy standards for the past two years by making them voluntary for 2017 and 2018. If the legislature had not acted, the mandates would have snapped back into place starting next year.
The Ohio General Assembly, lead by lame-duck Republicans in both the House and Senate, defied Kasich’s warnings not to send him a bill that extends the freeze but essentially did just that by making the standards voluntary.
In vetoing Substitute House Bill 554, Kasich credited Ohio’s ‘wide range of energy generation options’ with helping to grow jobs in the state over the past six years.
‘Sub. HB 554 risks undermining this progress by taking away some of those energy generation options, particularly the very options most prized by the companies poised to create many jobs in Ohio in the coming years, such as high technology firms,’ Kasich stated in a press release.”
— Peter Krouse, Cleveland Plain Dealer
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