Ohio Lawmakers passed HB-6 with a 51–38 vote, yesterday – July 23, 2019 – and Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine quickly signed it.  This makes Ohio the fifth state to pass legislation to support nuclear plants located within their states (Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut).

Nuclear advocates, such as Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute cheered the bill’s passage.  She released in a statement, “Today’s decision echoes support we’ve seen in New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Connecticut and reaffirms the major role nuclear carbon free energy has in lowering carbon emissions,” Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said in a statement.

The law essentially provides FirstEnergy Solution’s (FES’s) Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants with an estimated $150 million a year during the 2021 to 2027 period to keep the reactors in service, along with $20 million a year for future solar farms.. It also provides about $60 million a year through 2030 to keep two Ohio Valley Electric Corp. (OVEC) coal plants—one in Ohio and another in Indiana—in operation.