Legislators hope to bar foreign owners of power plants, lines
Two Ohio state lawmakers announced Friday that they are pursuing a constitutional amendment that would ban foreign ownership of “critical infrastructure,” including power plants and power lines.
The proposal, sponsored by Republican Reps. Jamie Callender and Don Manning, touches on themes raised by supporters of Ohio House Bill 6 during the contentious campaign to repeal the bill, which bails out two nuclear plants owned by Firstenergy Solutions.
The repeal effort is in serious jeopardy after failing to meet a legal deadline earlier this week to submit signatures needed to send the issue to voters.
Callender, of Lake County, said the effort to advance his amendment proposal will continue whether or not the repeal campaign is able to pull out a legal victory at the state level.
“I think the stuff in the campaign for me at least exposed me to see this loophole,” he said. “It existed whether or not there was a House Bill 6, and there’s still a concern."
What sponsors are calling the Ohio Critical Infrastructure Protection Amendment would ban any foreign person or company from holding a majority stake in “critical infrastructure” in Ohio, including power plants, power lines and water treatment plants.
It also would ban them from an ownership arrangement that would give them control of non-public technical information about the infrastructure, a board of directors position or “any other involvement in substantive decision making” involving the infrastructure or its underlying technology.
Callender said the amendment would expand on existing federal regulations that already scrutinize foreign investment in American infrastructure projects.
“As I’ve learned more about public utility infrastructure and our electric grid ... it’s become apparent to me that there are some real vulnerabilities to our critical infrastructure,” he said.
A spokesman for Gov. Mike Dewine, a Republican, declined to comment on the proposed amendment. Addressing reporters Friday before the amendment was introduced, Dewine, speaking generally, said Ohio shouldn’t ban foreign investment in power plants.
Amending the state Constitution requires approval from Ohio voters. Getting the amendment to the ballot would require 60% of both the House and the Senate to agree to it. The bill’s sponsors say they want to place it on the November 2020 ballot.
In the face of a campaign attempting to repeal HB 6, deep-pocketed backers of the legislation bought millions in hyperbolic ads tying the campaign to China, referencing foreign loans tied to the financing of some natural gas plants in Ohio.
They encouraged Ohioans to not sign the petitions, falsely equating them with providing their personal information to the Chinese government.
The pro-hb 6 group also circulated petitions — which carried no legal weight — seeking support for a constitutional amendment barring foreign ownership of power plants.
The group said they had collected more than 800,000 signatures, which they delivered to Callender this week.
The repeal campaign said the competing petition drive was a stunt meant to hire away petitioners that otherwise could have worked on their own campaign.
A federal court this past week declined to give the repeal campaign — which spent millions of dollars on petition circulators and ads — more time to gather signatures.