Yet lawmakers still frown at renewable energy standards.
Adding a mix of energy efficiency and renewable energy could add hundreds of thousands of jobs in Ohio, as well as giving the state billions in added payroll and savings stemming from health care costs, a new report finds.
Commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Nature Conservancy, the report comes as Ohio lawmakers are evaluating whether to intervene as the state’s two-year freeze on its renewable energy standard is set to lapse in 2017. Renewable energy standards requires utilities to get a certain amount of electricity from renewable resources such as wind and solar.
The report, which evaluates three scenarios, forecasts that renewable energy and efficiency could create nearly 140,000 jobs in about a decade and a half. Wind energy, a labor-intensive industry that uses Ohio manufacturers in its supply chain, would be the major driver.
“All three scenarios set achievable and conservative goals that are in line with what other states, and even several of Ohio’s own utilities, have adopted.” the report reads.
Green business would grow the state’s payroll as much as $7.6 billion by 2030, while Ohio’s gross domestic product would increase by as much as $10.7 billion. The state’s GDP now is more than $600 billion, according to state data. Even under the least aggressive scenario, the state would see $4.7 billion in added payroll and $6.7 billion in increased gross domestic product.
An increase in renewable energy and efficiency would also offset pollution associated with burning fossil fuels for energy, bringing mass savings in health care costs, according to the report. The state could see some $800 million in savings every year — going to as much as $3 billion a year by 2030 — from reduced health care costs alone.
“Ohio policymakers are at a crossroads. They can create jobs, grow the economy, cut pollution, and save customers money by rebuilding the state’s renewable and efficiency policies, or they can continue to let Ohio fall behind other states in the clean energy boom,” Dick Munson, director of Midwest Clean Energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.
In recent years Ohio, a swing state in the coming elections, has ranked last for renewable electricity capacity in the Midwest, according to 2014 government data. The state also ranks fourth in carbon dioxide emissions in the country and third in coal ash generation. Coal ash is a toxic byproduct of burning coal.
Yet in 2014, Gov. John Kasich (R) put a freeze on a the state’s 2008 renewable energy standard, which required Ohio to get 12.5 percent of its electricity from green sources, and to reduce consumption by 22 percent by 2025. Along with many lawmakers, he disagreed that the standard had economic benefits.
“[The standards] are simply unrealistic and will drive up energy costs for job creators and consumers,” Kasich said in a statement at the time.
But the standards are set to return next year unless lawmakers intervene.
Lawmakers, who are poised to vote on this issue after elections on Nov. 8, are divided. Some want to repeal it and allow utilities decide on their own how much to invest in green energy. Some have already said they favor extending it, perhaps permanently.
“I think we need to continue the freeze. The question is for how long, and what does that mean? I think that’s going to be where our discussion is going to be, and where we land is still an open question,” Senate President Keith Faber (R), told WKSU earlier this week.
Meanwhile, associations like the Ohio Farm Bureau are coming out in favor of the renewable energy standards, saying the state should have “a diversified energy portfolio that provides consumers with a variety of energy sources.”
The bureau’s statements came shortly after the Energy Mandates Study Committee called for an indefinite freeze on standards.
At the same time, polls suggest a disconnect between lawmakers’ animosity to renewable energy policy and the views of the general public, even conservatives. Just last month pollsters reported that a majority of Ohio’s Republican and independent conservative voters back renewable energy — even to the point of telling Republican candidates to favor green policies.
Fifty percent of respondents even said they would pay at least $5 more a month to get renewables in their electricity mix. Voters “think of renewable energy as a job creator, and place these sources of energy squarely in the mix of more traditional energy sources,” Lori Weigel, a partner with Public Opinion Strategies, told the Plain Dealer last month.
In fact, the Environmental Defense Fund report finds that customers would get lower bills with investments in efficiency and renewable energy, saving anywhere from $28.8 million to nearly $60 million. Increased efficiency offers the greatest cost reductions.
Kasich, who was seeking reelection when he signed the freeze in 2014, says now he’ll veto an indefinite freeze. “I’ve told the legislature the standards that were set were unrealistic,” he said, “but if you try and kill the standards, whether it has to do with the renewables or whether it has to do with the issue of saving energy, I’ll veto the bill and go to the higher standards.”
UPDATE: An earlier version of this article erroneously said Ohio ranked in the bottom three for renewable electricity capacity in the Midwest. The story has been updated to fix that mistake.