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A SERVICE OF OHIO'S PUBLIC BROADCASTING STATIONS
A SERVICE OF OHIO'S PUBLIC BROADCASTING STATIONS
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HEADLINES: Just hours after defending his proposal to expand lottery games, Gov. Ted Strickland is laying off his request for $18 million for money to offer Keno games as a way to plug a budget hole. Spring finally arrived in Ohio with a flood of concern about high water - just a week after record breaking snows. Several rivers were above flood levels. The board of elections in Ohio's largest county is investigating party-switching during the March 4th primary. About 16,000 GOP voters crossed over to vote for Democrats in the primary in Cuyahoga County. The board wants to know if voters lied when they signed statements pledging allegiance to their new party, or if they just switched in an attempt to give presumptive Republican nominee John McCain a weaker opponent in the fall. Two counties in Ohio are among the 100 fastest growing counties in the nation. But seven Ohio counties - all of them urban - lost population last year, according to the US Census Bureau. The freshest produce, dairy and meat may be as close as your computer, thanks to a new website. Ohio is the 10th state to sign on to Market Maker, a network that seeks to bring together those who grow and make food with those who use food in their businesses.
ROUNDTABLE SEGMENT: A little over nine months from now, the state is scheduled to drop its control over electric rates. Officials with Ohio's electric utilities say monthly bills won't spin out of control because if they soar after price caps are lifted, competitors will flock to Ohio and the free market will set rates that make economic sense. But consumer advocates and big users of electricity including factories and manufacturers say Ohioans will be jolted by suddenly sky-high monthly bills when state controls are gone. This fear sparked Gov. Strickland's energy bill, described as a hybrid of regulation and competition. And the bill has lots of opposition. The power companies are opposed to it, and a coalition of businesses and smaller energy companies agree with them, saying the free market and competition will hold costs down.
The energy bill zoomed through the Senate unanimously but has been stalled in the House for more than three months, and lawmakers there have said they want big changes in it. Now Gov. Strickland has come up with a compromise that has irritated the fans of competition, because it makes it clear he wants state regulators to continue to have control over electric rates....and it angers environmentalists, who say it holds back alternative energy benchmarks for another five years.
Here to explain their concerns about the bill and what might happen to it are Kevin Schmidt with the Ohio Manufacturers Association, which backs a move toward re-regulation...Howard Petrakoff with the Alliance for Real Energy Options, which says the free market is the way to go...and Jack Shaner with the Ohio Environmental Council, which says the energy bill promises consumer savings, but has also said if there are no early year alternative energy benchmarks, there will be no new green-collar jobs.
FEATURE SEGMENT: The governor and lawmakers smashed in the wall of a classroom in the basement of the Statehouse to make room for a new museum. It'll be 15-thousand square feet of high-tech interactive exhibits, including touchscreen monitors and interpretive graphics, which will allow visitors to explore the building's design and its place at key moments in history, to learn how a bill becomes a law, to meet past governors, and to test their knowledge through a quiz. It's the largest project at the Statehouse since the massive renovation of the building in the 1990s. The museum has been three years in the planning, and is expected to open in March 2009. But the gift shop will be open this summer.
ROUNDTABLE SEGMENT: A little over nine months from now, the state is scheduled to drop its control over electric rates. Officials with Ohio's electric utilities say monthly bills won't spin out of control because if they soar after price caps are lifted, competitors will flock to Ohio and the free market will set rates that make economic sense. But consumer advocates and big users of electricity including factories and manufacturers say Ohioans will be jolted by suddenly sky-high monthly bills when state controls are gone. This fear sparked Gov. Strickland's energy bill, described as a hybrid of regulation and competition. And the bill has lots of opposition. The power companies are opposed to it, and a coalition of businesses and smaller energy companies agree with them, saying the free market and competition will hold costs down.
The energy bill zoomed through the Senate unanimously but has been stalled in the House for more than three months, and lawmakers there have said they want big changes in it. Now Gov. Strickland has come up with a compromise that has irritated the fans of competition, because it makes it clear he wants state regulators to continue to have control over electric rates....and it angers environmentalists, who say it holds back alternative energy benchmarks for another five years.
Here to explain their concerns about the bill and what might happen to it are Kevin Schmidt with the Ohio Manufacturers Association, which backs a move toward re-regulation...Howard Petrakoff with the Alliance for Real Energy Options, which says the free market is the way to go...and Jack Shaner with the Ohio Environmental Council, which says the energy bill promises consumer savings, but has also said if there are no early year alternative energy benchmarks, there will be no new green-collar jobs.
FEATURE SEGMENT: The governor and lawmakers smashed in the wall of a classroom in the basement of the Statehouse to make room for a new museum. It'll be 15-thousand square feet of high-tech interactive exhibits, including touchscreen monitors and interpretive graphics, which will allow visitors to explore the building's design and its place at key moments in history, to learn how a bill becomes a law, to meet past governors, and to test their knowledge through a quiz. It's the largest project at the Statehouse since the massive renovation of the building in the 1990s. The museum has been three years in the planning, and is expected to open in March 2009. But the gift shop will be open this summer.
March 21, 2008