Backers of clean energy ballot drive remain
mystery even to green groups
Business First by Jeff Bell, Staff reporter
March 1, 2012
Some groups that typically lead the charge for Ohio’s clean energy industry are steering clear of
supporting a statewide ballot proposal that would direct $13 billion to such projects over the next
10 years.
For them, unanswered questions about who is behind the ballot drive and how the money would
be spent trump the potential benefits that such a massive spending program would have on the
development of alternative energy projects and research into clean energy.
“There are serious flaws (in the ballot proposal),” said Steve Caminati, director of the Ohio
Business Council for a Clean Economy. “We don’t think this is the right approach to develop
renewable energy.”
The council, which serves about 75 clean energy companies, manufacturers and others in the
industry, is not involved “whatsoever” in the ballot proposal, he said. Nor are leading
environmental groups in the state, said Brian Kaiser, director of green jobs and innovation for the
Ohio Environmental Council .
“Nobody had any idea of who was behind it or what was in it,” he said. “It was completely out of
left field.”
Kaiser, Caminati and others in the mainstream of Ohio’s clean energy movement have been
scrambling to uncover information about Yes for Ohio’s Energy Future, the group behind the
ballot bid.
State Attorney General Mike DeWine recently certified as “fair and truthful” the language of the
proposed constitutional amendment submitted by the group. The next step is for the Ohio Ballot
Board to determine if the measure should appear on the ballot as more than one issue. After that,
petitioners would need to collect 385,253 valid signatures of registered voters by the end of July
to place the issue on the Nov. 6 ballot.
The proposal calls for a constitutional amendment that would require the state to issue general
obligation bonds to cover $1.3 billion in annual spending on clean energy projects from fiscal
2013 to 2023.
The proposal also stipulates a new organization, Ohio Energy Initiative Commission LLC, would
have the authority to award the money and spend $65 million a year for operational expenses.
The text of the amendment describes the commission as a limited liability company registered in
the state of Delaware.
John Clarke, project coordinator for the clean energy ballot drive, declined to identify the
principals or investors in Ohio Energy Initiative Commission, saying they prefer to remain
anonymous at this time. Their identities are shielded from the public under Delaware’s laws for
limited liability companies.
“The whole reason for this structure,” Clarke said, “is so these people are not the face of the
movement. In a sense, they’re faceless.”
Yes for Ohio’s Energy Future hopes to use a mix of volunteers and paid petition circulators to
collect signatures to place the constitutional amendment on the ballot, Clarke said. The group’s
website, yesforohiosenergyfuture.com, says the clean energy plan would produce more than
300,000 permanent jobs from entry-level to highly skilled.
“It’s about jobs,” Clarke said. “The state still has a high unemployment rate and a manufacturing
sector that is languishing.”
Clarke said the state money in clean energy projects would be leveraged by private investments,
creating a return on investment of about 10-to-1 for every public dollar spent.
At $13 billion, the commitment to clean energy projects would be nearly six times the $2.3
billion Ohio will have invested in its Third Frontier technology development program from 2002
through 2015. The $13 billion in bonds also would more than double the state’s current
outstanding general obligation debt of $9.27 billion, said Rob Nichols, spokesman for Gov. John
Kasich.
Like many in Ohio’s clean energy industry, the Kasich administration also is trying to learn who
or what is behind the ballot drive, Nichols said.
“To take on $13 billion in additional debt, we need to look this over,” he said. “We need to know
more about this group, its motives and what this all entails.”
William Spratley, executive director of Green Energy Ohio, said using state money for projects
without public oversight is troubling. He is a former Ohio consumers’ counsel on public utility
issues who now promotes the development of green energy.
“It’s kind of a strange thing,” he said of the ballot measure. “We have a lot of concerns as it goes
forward. ... I’m astounded to see an amendment that completely goes around (state)
government.”
Spratley and others in the clean energy movement pushed hard for the renewable energy
standards that Ohio lawmakers enacted in 2008 as part of Senate Bill 221. Those standards,
which require electric utilities to get 25 percent of their power from advanced energy sources,
including renewables, by 2025, provided a better framework to develop clean energy than the
ballot proposal, Caminati said.
“We see the market having the solution,” he said. “We don’t need to try to move in this
direction.”
Jeff Bell covers public policy, utilities, energy and the business of sports for Business First.