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Speaker 2: Chuck Ingram on fifty five care seen the talksatock.
Speaker 1: Krc DE talk station. Very happy Wednesday too, Donald and
Speaker 1: Neil Americans for Prosperity can give us the info and
Speaker 1: low down on Ohio's energy bill which apparently is coming
Speaker 1: up for a vote. Dona, what's the story on this one?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you know, we've had for a number of years,
Speaker 3: and I've been on your show talking about it. Brian,
Speaker 3: the many, many bad ideas coming out of Columbus when
Speaker 3: it comes to energy policy.
Speaker 1: Continuing a theme bad ideas, anyway, go ahead, there you go.
Speaker 3: But there's some good stuff on the horizon, right And
Speaker 3: we missed something we had heard a lot from folks,
Speaker 3: and we had actually released a study alongside the Buckeye
Speaker 3: Institute earlier this year outlining better energy policy for Ohio.
Speaker 3: The good news is today, yesterday the Senate voted out
Speaker 3: of commenial send of the floor today a bill from
Speaker 3: the House to increase energy generation here in the state,
Speaker 3: eliminate subsidies and make it easier and more accessible to
Speaker 3: the marketplace for both consumers and the way that the
Speaker 3: energy distribution utilities make their their rates. That we pay
Speaker 3: on our utility bills. Ideally that goes to the House
Speaker 3: later today and we'll have this to the Governor's desk
Speaker 3: here in the coming weeks assigned into law. It's the
Speaker 3: biggest in twenty five years since the deregulation efforts of
Speaker 3: the late nineties. One of the most free market piece
Speaker 3: of legislation on energy policy the state has seen in
Speaker 3: a quarter of a decade. And we're really excited to
Speaker 3: see this thing follow through and move.
Speaker 1: By the end of the day to day. Well kind
Speaker 1: of to the chase. What does this mean for the
Speaker 1: rate payers or what do you anticipate this will mean
Speaker 1: for ratepayers?
Speaker 3: Well, right out of the gate, we're going to eliminate
Speaker 3: subsidies that you're paying on your bill eighty million dollars
Speaker 3: according to the Manufacturers Association of State of Ohio, eighty
Speaker 3: million dollars this year's forecasted if these subsidies remained in place,
Speaker 3: that rate payers you and I Brian on our home
Speaker 3: util bills would be paying in.
Speaker 1: For what kind of what kind of activities, what subs
Speaker 1: What is being subsidized.
Speaker 3: So it's being subsidized. Are two coal plants, one in
Speaker 3: the state of Ohio. I understand in the state of
Speaker 3: Indiana that are held over from Cold War era that
Speaker 3: we continue to subsidize through what's going as the OVX
Speaker 3: subsidies that we're at the heart of the Hospital six scandal.
Speaker 1: Interesting, So a subsidy is something that that's that runs
Speaker 1: along with obviously runs along with the money we pay
Speaker 1: for the power generation. I mean, aren't we already paying
Speaker 1: for the power generation? Why do they need to be subsidized?
Speaker 1: And I guess how did this thing end up hanging
Speaker 1: around for so many years and decades?
Speaker 3: Actually, well, like a lot of pieces of energy, and
Speaker 3: the way that energy policy has often been done right
Speaker 3: is that we'll, you know, assettle, lawmakers will identify a
Speaker 3: favored energy generation. Our friends in the left love wind
Speaker 3: and solar, some of our friends on the right love
Speaker 3: big nuclear and coal. And that what when I say
Speaker 3: all that, right, I'm not slashing any one of those,
Speaker 3: I'm slashing the idea that, hey, in order to do
Speaker 3: energy policy, I have to do good for my friends
Speaker 3: and the other guys be damned, right.
Speaker 1: I gotcha.
Speaker 3: In this case, what we're doing is saying, let's create
Speaker 3: a fair market, let's not subsidize one favorite industry over
Speaker 3: the other. Let's let the market decide and consumers will win.
Speaker 1: All right. Now, I note in the notes that this
Speaker 1: legislation will ensure market forces and not bureaucrats and utility
Speaker 1: lawyers decide energy prices. That means there's going to be
Speaker 1: some semblance of reality related to how much it costs
Speaker 1: to generate the power to what we're going to be
Speaker 1: paying for it.
Speaker 3: That's right well, And part of what this does is
Speaker 3: when we deregulated back in the late nineties, the idea
Speaker 3: was is that the distribution utilities, the duke energy is
Speaker 3: the first energy is the world AP's of the world
Speaker 3: would go out to the market and build their service
Speaker 3: offerings based around real world prices. But they failed to
Speaker 3: do that because they're clever and they they're they're looking
Speaker 3: out for their bottom line, and so they went out
Speaker 3: and they started creating doing it in other ways and
Speaker 3: working with the regulators to do that. This makes very
Speaker 3: clear that the only way State of Ohio you can
Speaker 3: determine energy prices is through market rate offers, market service offers.
Speaker 3: And so what that's going to enable us to do,
Speaker 3: right is really see the real price of energy and
Speaker 3: what it's going to cost to get it delivered to
Speaker 3: our homes, ensuring that again the market decides and consumers
Speaker 3: win well.
Speaker 1: And finally, I note that it's supposed to be it'll
Speaker 1: speed up new energy generation in Ohio. And I'm one
Speaker 1: of those big fans of modular nuclear plants, and I've
Speaker 1: already talked with the veak Ramaswami about his perception of
Speaker 1: nuclear and he embraces it wholeheartedly and believes that we
Speaker 1: should be the number one, you know, a state in
Speaker 1: the Union for modular nuclear because it provides consistent, reliable,
Speaker 1: carbon free energy if people care about carbon. I don't
Speaker 1: know why we've always stood in the way of these
Speaker 1: moving forward on this. Are we going to be able
Speaker 1: to have that and will it be able to be
Speaker 1: actually an achievable goal or is this just something that's
Speaker 1: going to be put on paper and delayed for decades.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's the idea. One of the things here, right,
Speaker 3: I think we've got to remember is there's a couple
Speaker 3: of layers. You've got the state and then you've got
Speaker 3: the federal government. Right that we've got to work through
Speaker 3: on the state level. This solves that problem. We still
Speaker 3: need the federal government in the Trump administration in Congress
Speaker 3: to do some of its work to make sure that
Speaker 3: we can approve things like like like these small modular
Speaker 3: nuclear reactors and most importantly, improvem in a timely manner.
Speaker 3: Here in Ohio. What I think we got that's going
Speaker 3: for us on that front is they speed up the
Speaker 3: power sighting board process. If you want to put a
Speaker 3: small modular clear reactor in one of these identified brownfield zones,
Speaker 3: they're going to be to get an answer on that
Speaker 3: within forty five days. So you're waiting three years, Yeah,
Speaker 3: forty five days the bureaucrats have to get you an
Speaker 3: answer back. In other cases it's less than a year.
Speaker 3: And so the legislature is making very clear you can't
Speaker 3: slow walk new projects. You really get if this generation
Speaker 3: is the application is complete and filed, you've got to
Speaker 3: give these folks an answer, as well as lowering tangible
Speaker 3: personal property taxes to make sure that you know, folks
Speaker 3: are incentivized to build their energy projects here in Ohio,
Speaker 3: not in other states. And so I think this sends
Speaker 3: a big signal and makes all how a big bright
Speaker 3: shining light and saying, hey, if we need if we're
Speaker 3: going to need to solve our energy generation problem in
Speaker 3: this country to handle the jobs we're trying to bring
Speaker 3: back to this country. Ohio is the place to cite
Speaker 3: your energy projects, and we're going to do it in
Speaker 3: a free market manner that rewards puts consumers at the
Speaker 3: top of the pyramid, not energy companies.
Speaker 1: Well I like that, Okay, So forty five days to
Speaker 1: approve it or deny it. Now, if they fail to
Speaker 1: approve within forty five days and get provided answers, that
Speaker 1: means it's automatically approved. Is it the default that that
Speaker 1: will be approved? Because I know, in spite of the
Speaker 1: rules and what are they're obligated to do, quite often
Speaker 1: they ignore them. Maybe they're gonna have to run into
Speaker 1: court to get a decision made. Or is there is
Speaker 1: it built in there that it's just going to be
Speaker 1: approved that they failed to do it in a timely fashion.
Speaker 3: My understanding is that if the if the regulators fail
Speaker 3: to act, the project will be defaulted to an approval.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 3: So this keeps these things moving, and that's that's the idea.
Speaker 3: And you think about things like the Keystone Excel pipeline, right,
Speaker 3: that's constantly a topic of debate in national politics. The
Speaker 3: problem there was you have one party in power for
Speaker 3: a couple of years who slow walk it, and the
Speaker 3: other who tries to get it done, and then they
Speaker 3: slow walk. Their parties switch and they slow walk it.
Speaker 3: We just need to make these decisions, Brian, so that
Speaker 3: we can get energy, you know, energy generation onto the
Speaker 3: grid and running oh other thing on the micro on
Speaker 3: the small modular reactors behind the meter. So there's going
Speaker 3: to be increased opportunities for folks like the big data
Speaker 3: centers that are large consumers of energy to create their
Speaker 3: own energy generation without putting taxpayers on the hook.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 3: The other problem we see there is getting interconnected into PGM,
Speaker 3: And so if we can speed up the ability for
Speaker 3: data centers or other big users to generate their own energy,
Speaker 3: they can get their energy online, get their jobs going,
Speaker 3: get their production moving, and then figure out the interconnection
Speaker 3: to PGM so the rest of the grid can access
Speaker 3: that energy down the line. I think that's important again
Speaker 3: to one protect rate payers and two speed up the
Speaker 3: necessary generation of new energy we want in the state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have the demand. If they can be free
Speaker 1: to generate that electricity, you know, the general population is
Speaker 1: probably going to be able to glom onto that because
Speaker 1: they don't need all electricity generated by a small nuclear reactor.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's sound policy right there, Donovan and Neil,
Speaker 1: Americans for Prosperity. What is anything we can do to
Speaker 1: help this process along? Or is it a foregone conclusion
Speaker 1: at this point?
Speaker 3: Well, we're hoping it's a foregone conclusion, and that's rare, right,
Speaker 3: Usually we're fighting bad ideas, but we believe this is
Speaker 3: going to move through today. What we're gonna need listeners
Speaker 3: to do is once this gets done later today, we're
Speaker 3: gonna have a call to action to thank your lawmakers
Speaker 3: because they've been up against a lot of heavy pressure
Speaker 3: from the utilities. So we're gonna have folks reaching out
Speaker 3: to thank lawmakers. I'll follow back up next time I'm
Speaker 3: on the show and give folks that call to action.
Speaker 1: If that's all right with you, No, that's wonderful. Praise
Speaker 1: them when they're doing the right job, and give them
Speaker 1: hell all the time when they're doing the wrong job,
Speaker 1: because nine times out of ten it falls into the
Speaker 1: latter category, which is why we have Americans for Prosperity.
Speaker 1: Donald and Neil, keep up the great work. I'll look
Speaker 1: forward to our conversation next week. My friend Brian always
Speaker 1: going to be with you. Seven to fifty one here
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