Ohio voters support renewable energy, poll finds

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Ohio voters support renewable energy, poll finds

Saturday, October 13, 2007
John Funk
Plain Dealer Reporter

An overwhelming majority of Ohio voters of all political stripes strongly favors requiring the state's utilities to generate electricity with wind turbines and other renewable technologies, even it were to cost more.

"Eight in 10 Ohioans support setting a renewable energy standard," Erin Bowser, director of Environment Ohio, told a Senate Committee on Energy and Public Utilities this week.

She said a survey conducted for the environmental advocacy group also shows that about three-quarters of the 600 registered Ohio voters polled in mid- September agreed that building new coal-fired or nuclear power plants "ought to be a last resort."

The Senate committee is continuing hearings on Gov. Ted Strickland's comprehensive electric restructuring bill. The proposal includes a provision to require the state's utilities to generate 12½ percent of their power with wind turbines, solar panels and other renewable technologies by 2020. Environment Ohio wants the lawmakers to set a 20 percent standard.

After a skeptical committee member Sen. Robert Spada, a North Royalton Republican, sarcastically asked whether the poll was a survey of "your members," Bowser told the committee that Public Opinion Strategies, "the largest Republican polling firm in the nation," conducted the telephone survey.

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