On April 29, 2025, The Buckeye Institute submitted written testimony to the Ohio Senate Energy Committee in Columbus, advocating for the policies of Ohio House Bill 15. Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at the institute, stated that the bill includes measures recommended by The Buckeye Institute and Americans for Prosperity to ensure affordable and reliable energy.
Lawson highlighted key elements of the bill that he believes support the state’s energy needs: the elimination of government subsidies impacting energy markets, tax reductions to incentivize new energy production, simplification of the siting process for new generation and transmission, removal of electric security plans, and maintaining the focus of utilities on transmission and distribution rather than generation.
Lawson suggested improvements to the bill, including a third-party audit of utility rate increase requests to ensure incurred costs are reasonable and prudent and the creation of natural gas pipeline “heat maps” to manage capacity effectively. Additionally, he proposed incorporating virtual net metering on brownfields to expand energy production and allowing the development of microgrids.
Lawson described House Bill 15 as the most free-market-driven energy legislation in Ohio since the deregulation in the late 1990s, noting its alignment with sound energy policies. These measures, according to The Buckeye Institute, would address the current and future energy challenges of Ohio in a market-friendly way.
