Ohio air pollution measures

Ohio may soon be among the growing list on the quest for “Green Planet Earth” and renewable energy, according to articles from the Plain Dealer and Columbus Dispatch over the past weekend, but there are otherwise problems along the way.

According to those articles, the first problem is perhaps Ohio’s deregulated electric utility law, which went into effect in Jan. 2001, but even Governor Ted Strickland thinks maybe the state would’ve been better off not having done.
He doesn’t want to go down the road of re-regulating utilities, but rather looks for a “hybrid approach while promoting renewable energy sources such as wind & solar power, upgrading energy efficiency, and modernizing the state’s electricity system.” Current regulations expire next year.

Ohio’s 2008 budget amends provisions to ORC §5733.39, ostensibly extending the state’s tax credit an additional two years for electric companies burning Ohio coal in qualified coal-fired electric generating unit before Jan. 2010, or Jan. 2008 for corporate franchise taxes since the corporate taxable year ends in 2009; and §5733.48, allowing a nonrefundable credit against corporate franchise taxes to retail dealers which sell alternative fuels. ( See Here )

There are also three bills currently pending in the Ohio legislature: HB 40 would establish a council on “sustainable energy” which would monitor activity in areas of biofuel & renewable energy for any developments that may assist in the growth in of companies in the state whose business relates to biofuel & renewable energy; HB 76 would create annual renewable energy requirements for electric utilities & service companies providing electric generation service in Ohio; SB 198 would be for a nonrefundable credit for the cost of constructing, buying, or leasing and placing into service renewable energy property on qualifying real estate.

There’s supply & demand -- and timing. A Wall Street Journal article yesterday said that in recent years improved technology has made it possible to build bigger, more efficient windmills, for instance, in wind-powered electrical generators. But, “combined with surging political support for renewable energy, that’s driven up demand, and now numerous wind-powered projects from Virginia to California have been stalled due to shortages, mostly because manufacturers can’t get parts fast enough.”

And then there’s the federal government….. In 2003 Ohio power plants, cars & trucks, homes & factories dumped an estimated 287.3 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to an April Columbus Dispatch article, ranking it fourth in the nation behind Texas, California & Pennsylvania as top polluters. And that makes the state a battleground in the growing political fight as limits on carbon dioxide limits begin to be set. On June 20th., the Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed rules setting a tougher air quality standard for ozone, though not as stringent as had been advised by the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. The public comment period for those rules is still open, and can be made via EPA’s site here.