COLUMBUS, Ohio—A new group that supports House Bill 6 has embarked on a nearly $1 million statewide ad campaign in an attempt to prevent a referendum on overturning the recently enacted law to bail out Ohio’s nuclear power plants and gut the state’s green-energy mandates for utilities.

The massive TV and radio ad buy, by the group Ohioans for Energy Security, is an early indication of the deluge of ads Ohioans will be subjected to if the proposed referendum makes the ballot in 2020.

An anti-HB6 group, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, is still working to get the go-ahead from state officials to begin collecting the 265,774 signatures from registered voters needed to hold a statewide vote on overturning the new law, which was signed by Gov. Mike DeWine about a month ago.

The 1-minute advertisement from Ohioans for Energy Security accuses Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts (without mentioning its name) of “boosting Chinese financial interests.” The group, the ad states, “is targeting Ohio’s energy, taking Ohio money, exporting Ohio jobs, even risking our national security. They’re meddling in our elections.”

The justification for these accusations, according an Ohioans for Energy Security release, is that Bill Siderewicz, a natural-gas power plant investor involved with Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, has received financing from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which is owned by the Chinese government. Last week, Siderewicz’s company, Clean Energy Future, scrapped plans to build a $1.1 billion natural-gas plant in Lordstown; Siderewicz cited HB6 as the reason.

Asked how Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts is “risking our national security,” Ohioans for Energy Security spokesman Carlo LoParo said the anti-HB6 group, with Chinese ties, is “trying to create an energy monopoly in Ohio for their own self-interest.”

Ohioans for Energy Security has purchased ad time costing $644,000 on broadcast TV, $316,000 on cable, and $33,000 on radio, according to Medium Buying, a Columbus-based political ad tracking firm. The ads are scheduled to run through Sept. 3.

Ohioans for Energy Security and Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts are each LLCs, meaning they aren’t required to disclose who’s funding them. Both groups have declined to reveal their donors.

Gene Pierce, a spokesman for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, said in a statement that the anti-referendum ads "are a ridiculous and desperate smokescreen to distract Ohio voters from the fact that House Bill 6 is a blatantly anti-consumer bill.”

HB 6, which takes effect this fall, imposes a new surcharge on every Ohio electricity bill (ranging from 85 cents for residential customers to $2,400 for large industrial plants) to give FirstEnergy Solutions $150 million per year to subsidize its Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants in Northern Ohio.

Starting next January, ratepayers around the state would also have to chip in up to $1.50 monthly (and up to $1,500 per month for commercial and industrial users) to subsidize coal plants in Ohio and Indiana run by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation.

However, HB6 would effectively halt Ohio’s decade-old energy-efficiency and renewable-energy mandates for utilities, which currently cost residential customers an average of $4.74 per month. That means by 2027, residential ratepayers would, overall, save an estimated $3.78 per month compared to what they pay now.

HB 6 has created some strange bedfellows. Supporters of the measure include labor unions, nuclear power advocates, and local officials from areas near the nuclear plants; critics include environmental groups, the fossil-fuel industry, renewable energy companies, and some small-government activists.

It’s not surprising that pro-HB6 forces are spending heavily to keep the law on the books. During the legislative debate over HB6, a dark-money group called Generation Now (found to have ties to an adviser to Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, perhaps the most prominent supporter of HB6) blanketed Ohio’s airwaves with ads asking people to contact their lawmaker to urge support for the bill.