"Under the state’s infamous HB6 law, customers had to pay over half a billion dollars to keep the two 1950s-era plants running. A new law ends the subsidies this month."
"After six years and more than a half billion dollars in consumer costs, Ohio utility customers will no longer have to subsidize two 1950s-era coal plants in the state.
A new law that takes effect on August 14 officially eliminates the coal subsidies created by House Bill 6, the 2019 nuclear and coal bailout law at the heart of Ohio’s ongoing utility-corruption saga.
Despite the Trump administration’s push to keep polluting coal plants open, their electricity is generally less competitive than alternatives such as combined-cycle gas, solar energy, and wind power. These two coal plants in particular are often among the most expensive options available in the grid region serving Ohio, and yet have run anyway.
Lawmakers repealed HB 6’s nuclear bailout less than a year after the corruption scandal became public, with the arrests of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others in 2020, but multiple bills to repeal the coal plant subsidies failed. It wasn’t until HB 15 passed in May that lawmakers finally agreed to end the mandated payments — at least for the 5 million customers of Ohio’s regulated utilities."
Kathiann M. Kowalski reports for Canary Media August 7, 2025.
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