FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to stop a proposed referendum to repeal a state law granting subsidies to two of the company's nuclear power plants.
In a lawsuit filed Sept. 4, the company said House Bill 6 imposes a tax on all Ohio retail electric customers and is therefore exempt from a referendum under the Ohio Constitution. The lawsuit names Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, the group trying to overturn the law; three of its members; and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
The lawsuit comes days after Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts got the go-ahead to start collecting the 265,744 signatures of Ohio registered voters needed to get the repeal on the November 2020 ballot. The group needs to collect the signatures by Oct. 21.
H.B. 6, signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine in July, will provide $150 million in annual financial support for the 908-MW Davis-Besse and 1,268-MW Perry nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions.
Ohio's electric distribution utilities are to collect a monthly charge from retail electric customers beginning Jan. 1, 2021, through Dec. 31, 2027. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio must ensure that the per-customer monthly charge collected for residential customers does not exceed 85 cents and that the per-customer monthly charge for industrial customers does not exceed $2,400.
The law also provides ratepayer-backed funding for two Ohio Valley Electric Corp.-operated coal plants, one of which is in Indiana, and funnels $20 million each year to a renewable generation fund. It also lowers and freezes Ohio's renewable energy mandate at 8.5% in 2026 and ends the state's mandated energy efficiency programs by Dec. 31, 2020, or once utilities meet a 17.5% annual energy savings benchmark.
Electric distribution utilities in Ohio and several other states have ownership interests in the two Ohio Valley plants.
FirstEnergy Solutions filed a separate motion asking the court to act quickly. The sooner the court invalidates the referendum petition, the motion said, the fewer the number of Ohio voters will be misled by the "illegal referendum effort and the less public resources that will be wasted in determining the sufficiency of signatures and other legal requirements relating to the futile Referendum Petition."
Gene Pierce, a spokesman for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, said the lawsuit has no legal basis.
"This frivolous lawsuit is another desperate attempt by FirstEnergy Solutions to protect their ill-gotten billion dollar bailout," Pierce said in a statement.
