An obstruction against the United States’ transition into its sustainable energy goals has been introduced through the Ohio bill aimed at halting the development and buildout of large-scale solar and wind projects for up to three years.
As explained in an Energy News Network report, House Bill (HB) 786 aims to prevent regulators from certifying any new solar and wind facility capable of generating more than 50MW of electricity. Even as low as 5MW generated from economically significant wind farms would also be prevented by the bill.
The primary sponsor of the HB786, Rep. Todd Smith, cited complaints about ‘unregulated solar and wind farms’ in the state. He also argued that the bill’s goal is to ‘simply press a pause button’ on the expansion of solar and wind installations.
Quite interesting, the official reference to a ‘pause button’ on sustainable solutions echoes language from 2014, when lawmakers froze further requirements under Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards for two years.
Repressed versions of the standards resumed in 2017, but even those were repressed by HB 6. Smith and HB 786 co-sponsors Dick Stein and Don Jones were involved in HB 6, which also happened to provide huge subsidies to two coal plants and two nuclear plants in the area.
Some renewable energy advocates, Rep. Casey Weinstein and D-Hudson opposed the bill stating that the bill is a ‘bury-our-heads-in-the-sand mentally that is just so locked in the status quo, while the rest of the world and country are moving on’. Neil Waggoner, Ohio campaign leader for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal program, stated that HB 786 is ‘not just a bad policy but a terrible one’.
Furthermore, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), whose members are involved in numerous energy construction projects have also objected to this bill. IBEW emphatically opposed this legislation and confessed to the thousands of job opportunities the solar industry has brought to the state of Ohio.