Sierra Club Launches Radio Ad Against Legislative Coal Bailout

The Sierra Club launched a radio advertising campaign denouncing the Ohio Investor Owned Utilities’ push for a legislative coal bailout at the Statehouse. HB 239 and SB 155 would cost customers more than $2 billion to keep two dirty coal-burning plants operating.

Last week, a report from Dr. Ezra Hausman showed these plants – Kyger Creek in Ohio and Clifty Creek in Indiana – can no longer compete in today’s energy markets absent the customer-funded subsidies in the bailout bill.  The report also explains how the purported “national security” rationale for this bailout is wrong. The decisions that have left these plants’ owners saddled with debt were all made after the federal government’s uranium enrichment program ended, and after Ohio had begun pursuing its path of deregulating the state’s power plants.

According to the legislative proposals, any and all costs associated with operating these 1950s-era coal-burning power plants would be put onto the bills of Ohio’s electricity customers for more than two decades. It would shift all costs from each respective utility’s ownership share in these power plants to customers for the next twenty three years and would require customers to pay for old, polluting generation that is not competitive with newer, cleaner alternatives.

The full audio of the radio ad can be found here.

“Ohio’s investor owned utilities are making another coal bailout attempt; this time in the Ohio  Statehouse,” said Daniel Sawmiller, Senior Representative of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Ohio. “This radio ad encourages customers to tell their lawmakers to say no to higher electricity bills and to vote no on this legislative coal bailout.”

RADIO AD SCRIPT

 

WIFE: You seem upset. What are you reading?

 

HUSBAND: [newspaper shuffling sound] Our legislature wants to raise our electric bill again.

 

WIFE: What?

 

HUSBAND: Our legislature is trying to force us to pay more on our electric bill to pay for two dirty coal plants, and one isn’t even in Ohio!

 

WIFE: I heard that the utilities tried to get a coal bailout last year through the utilities commission and they were rejected by federal regulators.

 

HUSBAND: That’s right — and since their bailouts were rejected, they are pushing the legislature to bail them out now.

 

WIFE: Ohio legislators should look to why these horrible bailouts were rejected and not burden Ohio customers with a legislative bailout that will increase our bills while giving us no benefit.

 

HUSBAND: We can hardly afford our electric bill now.  Why are we being asked to pay for two outdated coal plants instead of investing in newer, cleaner forms of energy?

 

ANNOUNCER: Let’s put a stop to this legislative bailout. Go to sc.org/NoBailout to say NO to an bailout, and YES to clean energy.

 

DISCLAIMER: Paid for by Sierra Club.

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