The Ohio Senate heard testimony Tuesday, June 25, that HB 6, its bill to keep two northern Ohio nuclear power plants operating, would drive manufacturing operations to southern states where power prices would be lower.

According to Utility Dive, a power industry website, Ohio State University professor Edward "Ned" Hill, former dean of Cleveland State University's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, told the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee that the electric rate increases that would ultimately result from the legislation "will affect the state's ability to keep or attract aerospace, automotive and advanced manufacturing industries as well as limit the state's ability to attract new energy-intensive data centers."

FirstEnergy Solutions(FES), which operates the Perry nuclear power plant in Lake County and the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ottawa County, has sought legislation it says it needs to continue to operate the nuclear plants. HB 6, which has passed the House, would tack onto customers' bills a monthly surcharge to subsidize plants, including Davis-Besse and Perry, that discharge no carbon dioxide into the air.

Without the subsidy, FES has said the 1,500 people employed at the two plants would lose their jobs.

Hill argued in a 21-page presentation that passage of the legislation as written would drastically drive up Ohio power prices and potentially send new manufacturing jobs to states south of Ohio where power prices would be lower and it would also discourage investment in natural gas-fired power plants that would use natural gas from Ohio shale country.

"That prospect is an economic development nightmare and a loss of employment opportunities in Ohio's shale country," Hill said in his report.