Save Ohio Parks testifies on Senate Bill 2

On February 25, 2025, Cathy Becker, board president of Save Ohio Parks, delivered the following testimony to the Ohio Senate Energy Committee regarding Senate Bill 2.

Download testimony pdf here

See Cathy’s interview about SB 2 on For A Green Future (15 minutes in)

Chair Chavez, Vice Chair Landis, Ranking Member Smith, and Members of the Senate Energy Committee,

Thank you for the opportunity to give Interested Party testimony on Senate Bill 2, whose goal is to increase power generation and improve Ohio’s electric grid. My name is Cathy Becker, and I am the board president for Save Ohio Parks. We are an all-volunteer citizens group that formed two years ago to educate the public on the health, environmental and climate warming harms of fracking under our beloved state parks and public lands.

SB 2 is a wide-ranging piece of legislation, and as citizens concerned about protecting our public lands, we can only speak to certain parts of the bill. My testimony will cover 1) ending the OVEC and solar subsidies, 2) fast-tracking the Ohio Power Siting Board process, 3) expanding the definition of self-generator, and 4) three programs we think should be included to make SB 2 a truly comprehensive, fair, and inclusive energy bill.

Legacy Generation Resource Rider and Solar Generation Fund

SB 2 would repeal both the Legacy Generation Resource Rider, through which Ohioans have paid $670 million to bail out two aging Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) coal plants, as well as the Solar Generation Fund, through which Ohioans have paid $60 million, of which only $10 million has actually been spent to help build solar plants in Ohio.

As currently written, SB 2 would end the solar subsidies immediately, but not end the coal subsidies until various utility Electric Security Plans – which the bill will also eventually end – run their course. In some cases, this would take several years.

We believe that Ohio should not be playing favorites with energy sources – so if you are going to end one subsidy for a disadvantaged industry immediately, then you should also immediately end the other subsidy for an industry that is far more powerful and polluting.

Further, in both cases the money should be refunded to the citizens of Ohio as soon as the legislation goes into effect. If that is impossible, then the unspent $50 million in solar subsidies should be used to actually build out solar generation in Ohio, just as the coal subsides have already gone to the OVEC coal plants.

Ohio Power Siting Board Process

The Ohio Power Siting Board has a long approval process in which an energy company must submit thousands of pages in an application, hold several open hearings, and take months of public comments on a proposed project. While we understand the wish for a more expedited process, we are concerned that the process for power siting in SB 2 is simply too short. I have seen OPSB decisions literally take years – this would shorten the process to only four months before a decision had to be made.

One concern we have is that there appears to be no process for public input, either spoken or in writing. This is our chief concern with the commission that decides on nominations to frack public land – Ohio citizens can submit written testimony, but commissioners have never discussed that testimony, and we the citizens who own and use public land are not allowed to speak in any of the meetings where decisions are being made.

That is unacceptable, even more so when siting a major power generating facility. 98% of public comments on two recent nominations to frack Salt Fork State Park were opposed, yet the commission without discussion approved those nominations anyway. Likewise, a power siting process this expedited risks rubber-stamping energy projects regardless of what the community directly affected wants.

Another concern we have is for environmental evaluation. Again looking at our experience with the commission that decides on nominations to frack public land, there is no geologist, no biologist, no climate scientist who could speak to the environmental harms of a project and how such harms could be mitigated – even though state law requires that these factors be considered. It’s just as important to consider the environmental effects of a major energy generation facility in Ohio, yet there seems to be no process for that in SB 2.

Self-generators

SB 2 modifies the definition of “self-generator” to include an entity that owns or hosts an electric generation facility on property the entity controls. The bill allows for the creation of mercantile customer self-power systems, which provide electric generation service to one or more mercantile customers.

Although SB 2 does not say so, presumably the idea is for major electricity users, such as the growing number of data centers in Ohio, to build a generation system behind the meter to power most or all of its own operations. Where the energy for this generation system comes from is not specified, but the bill defines “green energy” as gas or nuclear, yet somehow not solar or wind.

We are concerned about the impact of these self-power systems on both local communities and the world. First the community. Many of these data centers are being built in cities and residential areas. There are literally four Amazon data centers within a few miles of my house in Hilliard, including one across the street from my subdivision. I absolutely do not want a gas or nuclear plant to co-locate with any of those data centers. That poses a risk to my family from the pollution these facilities entail and the risk of a major accident. Many data centers are in relatively wealthy areas such as Dublin and New Albany, and those residents will not want gas and nuclear plants next door either.

More broadly, a buildout of dozens of new gas plants to power data centers means more fracking, likely of Ohio’s state parks and wildlife areas which are supposed to be protected. Thousands of studies link fracking to health problems such as cancer, leukemia, heart disease, stroke and asthma among the people who live nearby. Fracking releases a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The Marcellus and Utica shale rank as major methane emitters worldwide. And fracking takes tens of millions of gallons of fresh water per well – the equivalent of 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools from Ohio’s rivers, lakes and streams — and converts it into toxic radioactive waste, which can never enter the water cycle again and must then be trucked away to be disposed of in injection wells, where it has been shown to migrate to water wells and production wells.

While we recognize the need for more electricity production, we strongly believe Ohio should not be banking on a future based on unlimited expansion of fracked gas plants. We must support the development of renewable energy as strongly as oil and gas. Science tells us our planet is at a tipping point for burning fossil fuels. The climate crisis is here, reflected in many ways, including in everyone’s home insurance premiums, which continue to rise as the number and intensity of storms, fires, floods and droughts increase. The climate crisis isn’t going away just because we don’t talk about it and don’t address it in legislation.

What’s missing from SB 2

This gets me to what is missing from SB 2. Last session saw three very good bills, most with Republican sponsors, that were all allowed to die during lame duck. At that time, we were told they would be covered by major new energy legislation to be introduced in 2025. Yet here is that legislation, and these bills are not part of it. SB 2 would be stronger if they were. 

These bills include:

• HB 79, which would set up a voluntary energy efficiency program. The cheapest energy is the energy you never use because energy efficiency programs help you use less. Ohioans saved over $5 billion on utility bills between 2008 and 2017, according to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. Folding HB 79 into SB 2 would bring down the amount of energy needed to be generated, as well as save consumers money.

• SB 275, which would set up a virtual net metering program on distressed lands. SB 2 would also set up priority investment areas on brownfields and former coal mines, which would promote economic growth, job creation, and land revitalization. We strongly support this part of SB 2, but believe land already damaged by fossil fuels should be used to generate clean energy through solar or wind projects, with virtual net metering used to credit the power from these facilities to the buyer.

• HB 197, which would set up a community solar pilot program in Ohio. Again solar projects would be placed on brownfields and distressed sites, in this case to help Ohio residents pay their utility bills while generating clean energy. Many people who can’t afford solar on their home, or who can’t get solar because they live in an apartment or their roof is not suitable, would buy into a community solar program.

This concludes my testimony on SB 2. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I will try to answer any questions.