Police were called to assist an 8-year-old boy with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Cleveland in December 2020. When the child struggled against officers, one threatened to strap the child down and added, “You ain’t no big man” (CLEVELAND DIVISION OF POLICE).
An ambulance was already outside the East Side Cleveland home, its lights flashing, when the police officer arrived one evening in December 2020. According to body camera footage from the incident, the aunt of an 8-year-old with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder said the boy was “acting crazy.” At one point, she said he had climbed out a window onto the house’s roof.
This Avon Lake Power Plant, a 680.0-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station near Avon Lake, Ohio, is scheduled to fully close in September of 2021. In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency found GenOn (then owner) and its Avon Lake coal power plant guilty of excessive ozone emissions, and the plant’s coal unit 7 and coal unit 9 were scheduled for deactivation by April 2015. These units continue to operate today under a Mercury and Air Toxics extension granted by the Ohio EPA (source: Global Energy Monitor; Photo by Bien Stephenson).
A plan to end Ohio’s long-criticized Electric Security Plans comes from a primary sponsor of HB 6, the 2019 law at the heart of a $60 million corruption case.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
This story is from the Energy News Network in collaboration with Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join Eye on Ohio’s free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy News Network as this helps Eye on Ohio and The Tremonster provide more public service reporting.
A new plan is on the table to phase out rate programs that have let Ohio’s electric utilities collect billions in subsidies over the past dozen years. But the bill aims to continue coal plant subsidies and cuts authority for utility energy efficiency programs.
Critics also worry that vague wording will continue cross-subsidies in another guise.
In one extreme example, a Cleveland neighborhood group received a $70 monthly bill in 2019 for a single lamppost, with only 38 cents going to electricity.
Now, House Bill 317 would slash statutory provisions for the plans. The bill, introduced last month, comes from Rep. Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro. Wilkin was a primary sponsor of HB 6, the 2019 nuclear and coal bailout lawthat also gutted the state’s clean energy standards. And it aimed to“recession-proof” utilities by letting them guarantee revenue levels under their 2018 Electric Security Plans.
CRITICS QUESTION WHETHER THE FORMER OHIO UTILITY COMMISSION CHAIR SHOULD HAVE RECUSED HIMSELF MORE OFTEN TO AVOID ANY APPEARANCE OF BIAS.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join the Eye on Ohio free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps provide more public service reporting.
Concerns about the outsized influence of utility and fossil fuel interests have resurfaced as the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio begins steps to name a new commissioner after the sudden exit of Chair Sam Randazzo.
Randazzo resigned on Nov. 20 after an FBI team had searched his home and FirstEnergy released a mandatory quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report showed the company paid $4 million to an entity associated with Randazzo shortly before his appointment last year.
Now the Public Utilities Commission, or PUCO, has put out a call for applicants to fill the vacancy. Under Ohio law, a nominating council will review the applications and then nominate four candidates to the governor. Advocates have criticized the council, which only has one seat for a consumer advocate, as being too heavily tilted toward utility interests.
Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder appeared in federal court on his nuclear power plant bailout public corruption charges on July 21 (photo courtesy of Ohio State House News Bureau)
Case filings and delay of possible nuclear bailout combine to block Ohioans from learning more before voting.
This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join the Eye on Ohio free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
Consumer advocates, industry organizations and environmental groups continue efforts to learn more about claims that FirstEnergy and current or former subsidiaries may have financed an alleged $60-million conspiracy to make sure Ohio’s nuclear bailout bill became law and withstood a referendum attempt.
Yet opposition by FirstEnergy in two regulatory cases and in state court has combined with the legislative recess to prevent those groups and voters from learning more before Election Day.
The order agrees that spending should be open to review but first requires the company to review itself.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
This article provided to The Tremonster through an investigative journalism collaboration withEye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join Eye on Ohio’sfree mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy News Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
Regulators are requiring FirstEnergy to show that its Ohio utility ratepayers didn’t foot the bill, “directly or indirectly,” for political or charitable spending in support of the state’s nuclear and coal bailout bill. Yet that order is much more lenient than the state’s official consumer advocate had sought.
Questions about possible improprieties arose after former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, was arrested on July 21. That case involves an alleged criminal conspiracy by him and others to pass House Bill 6 last year and then to defend it against a citizens’ referendum. The federal complaint and indictment allege that the defendants received approximately $60 million from “Company A” — apparently FirstEnergy — and its subsidiaries and affiliates.
Here’s what’s at stake as Ohio lawmakers debate whether and how to repeal the bailout law at the heart of an alleged $60 million conspiracy case.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
This article provided to The Tremonster through an investigative journalism collaboration withEye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join Eye on Ohio’sfree mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy News Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
A bill to repeal Ohio’s nuclear bailout law has languished for more than a month so far, and signs suggest that House leadership may be angling to defer or stop such efforts as Election Day draws near. Lawmakers filed repeal bills soon after the arrest of former speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) and others in July.
Starting in January, House Bill 6 will require ratepayers to pay approximately $1 billion over the course of six years for subsidies that FirstEnergy had sought for two Ohio nuclear plants. Yet more is at stake, even beyond the $7 average increase in monthly energy spending that some advocates forecast as a result of the law.
This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join our free mailing list as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
In early March, just as Ohioans were learning about the first cases of novel coronavirus in the state, Anna Bondar’s grandfather fell at his Cleveland home.
Luckily, the 92-year old, who lives with dementia, wasn’t injured badly.
The tight-knit family started to discuss the possibility of a nursing home, though they had serious reservations.
