Wind turbines erected by Iberdrola Renewables as part of the Blue Creek Wind Farm in Van Wert, Ohio, may be among the last built in Ohio if the state permanently ends its renewable energy mandates as some lawmakers want. Gov. Kasich has vowed to veto such legislation. (Karen Schiely/Akron Beacon Journal)
COLUMBUS — “Gov. John Kasich has again threatened to veto any legislation that would kill the state’s laws requiring electric companies to help customers use less electricity and to sell more power generated by wind, solar and other renewable technologies.
That puts the administration on a collision course with State Sen. William Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, who has been circulating different versions of proposed legislation that would do away with or weaken future state renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates.
The standards were created by legislation originally passed in 2008. They have been ‘frozen’ for two years by legislation approved in 2014 but are set to come back to life Jan. 1, unless lawmakers pass another bill.
‘I’m for developing all these other [energy] resources …’ Kasich said during a University of Texas forum over the weekend.
‘I’ve told the legislature the standards that were set were unrealistic,’ he said of the 2008 law would have eventually required power companies to secure 12.5 percent of the power they sell from renewable sources and to help customers cut electricity by as much as 22 percent.
‘But if you try to kill the standards, whether it has to do with the renewables or whether it has to do with the issue of saving energy, I’ll veto the bill and we’ll go to the higher standards,’ Kasich told his Texas audience. ‘So, you know I’m committed to it.'”
— John Funk, The Plain Dealer
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