© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
News
To contact us with news tips, story ideas or other related information, e-mail newsstaff@ideastream.org.

State Lawmakers Poised To Reconsider Renewable Standards Freeze

A wind turbine on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. (Tony Ganzer / ideastream)

State lawmakers are coming up on a deadline on whether to change the law on green energy and renewable standards for utilities, or to leave it alone and let those standards go back into effect. Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports. 

A law passed in 2014 froze those renewable energy requirements for power companies for a two year period, expiring this year.  

A bill from Republican Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati would stop what he calls those “mandates” from taking effect another three years.  

“I am not a believer in socialism. This is not Bernie Sanders-ville. And I do not appreciate or favor mandates on our businesses and our residents to pay for stuff that they don’t voluntarily wish to do.”

Seitz says the bill implements the recommendations of a lawmaker study committee, including counting more sources as renewable and promoting energy efficiency and weatherization.

Gov. John Kasich has called the committee’s recommendations unacceptable.