(tense music) - [Mike] Sticker Shock is coming for many on their next electric bill.

Ohio has opened the door for fracking under state parks, and Pride Month has begun with an advisory about the increased potential for violence against the LGBTQ+ community.

"Ideas" is next.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas".

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The cost of the electricity to keep you cool this summer is going up, in some cases, doubling.

Electric bills for many rate payers are going to spike.

Oil and gas companies are showing interest in fracking under state-owned lands, including state parks.

New administrative rules set up for the process began this week.

The Ohio Supreme Court says the ballot board got it right when it made the Abortion Rights Amendment a single issue for voters to decide.

And the Department of Homeland Security has issued an advisory about the increased potential for violence against the LGBTQ+ community.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on "The Reporter's Round Table".

Joining me this week in studio from Ideastream Public Media, reporter Abbey Marshall, from "The Buckeye Flame", editor Ken Schneck, and in Columbus, Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau correspondent, Jo Ingles.

Let's get ready to round table.

Beginning this month, electric bills are going up big time for many people.

Energy experts have been sounding the warning for months that electric customers will see substantially bigger bills because of higher costs for generating power.

Some bills might even double.

Customers have been encouraged to shop around for better prices, and many have done so, either individually or they're part of an aggregation program, which offers some relief, but there's a lot involved in that, a lot you have to pay attention to.

Electric providers say, the higher prices will be in effect for about a year.

So digging into this, the good news, Ken, is we don't have to get to every granular detail in this conversation because Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" we're gonna have an expert in and we're gonna dig into all of this stuff and get into the nitty gritty.

But it's important enough to talk about on the round table now.

One aggregator, NOPEC, the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council, last year dropped all of its customers, and we had a big story about that.

And the prices were too high and so they dropped their customers.

They all went back to the legacies.

They then re-enrolled their customers and it turned out timing was perfect for them, because while everyone else went to auction earlier when the prices were higher, NOPEC'S able to get something cheaper.

So if you're part of that aggregation program, you're actually gonna save money.

- Yeah, so I highly encourage people to tune in on Monday as I will be tuning in.

'Cause can we just start with, this is confusing.

- [Mike] ] It's totally confusing.

- It's totally confusing.

So one of the things that helped me in reading up on this was that an electric bill consists of two parts.

That the first part is the price to deliver electricity to a home or business and pay to the utility company.

And then the second part, and this is where things get a little bit screwy is the cost of the actual power.

And that's what we're talking about here.

So that's the portion of the bill that in some cases might double.

So NOPEC customers, they're gonna be guaranteed, it looks like electricity below the rate of the pricing that's gonna be offered by largely first energy subsidiaries.

- [Mike] Well below.

- Well below.

- And that is a benefit.

On the other hand, there are many that aren't involved in those, that those are cities that would be part of the aggregation service.

There are other people that don't have access to that.

What you do have access to is shopping, but who shops for energy?

- [Ken] Right.

- You know, it's not like going to a big box store.

- [Ken] It's not on Amazon Prime, yeah.

There's no free delivery on this.

And even more confusing, many of us have been sitting at home when someone just knocked on our door and they're asking to see our energy bill.

And I'm like, "I don't really understand what's happening right now, and can you please go?"

It's confusing for people, and not of top concern until you get that bill.

- And that's what's going to happen.

And Abby, that's the the point, particularly for customers in Cleveland.

They're gonna be see seeing their next bill and where they might have paid, say it's a hundred dollars, it'll be $140 or even more than that, it's gonna be a sticker shock situation 'cause we're not talking about a couple of pennies.

- Right.

And yeah, you gotta think about the impact on particularly people in low income households.

Inflation has affected all of us.

We've all felt it in the past few years, the higher than average inflation.

But wages have not risen at the same rate.

So, you're talking about people that are gonna have to make the difficult decision perhaps between buying groceries or paying an electric bill, and just turning off AC and sweating this summer.

We'll get to this in a second, but this will only if you live in Cleveland, affect you for two months with a proposal coming through for approval Monday.

- So let's talk about that.

We talk about NOPEC, there's also Northeast Ohio Energy Public Energy Council.

There's also SOPEC, which is in southern Ohio, and that is what the city of Cleveland has joined in with for aggregation.

But they didn't do that until just recently.

They didn't put out a request for proposal until April.

So by the time that got into shape and people might get some relief from those rates, it won't kick in for a couple of months.

- Right.

So the Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council's, SOPEC, not to be confused with NOPEC, although it is very confusing.

- I think NOPEC actually kind of got it helped get it started.

- Right.

So on on Monday, they're expecting to approve this partnership with SOPEC, which is this aggregator and they're promising huge savings for people.

I watched some public hearings this week where they were talking about this proposal.

They said that they saved $13 million for the communities that they serve in Ohio.

They cited Dayton specifically.

And they said last year they saved $300 per household while being a hundred percent green.

So that is coming through, but those likely won't alleviate costs till August.

So, we still have that two month period where you might notice these hikes.

- Now, you can do something about that.

But, and this is the point we were talking about earlier, Ken, you can go on to a website called Apples to Apples from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and you can see what everybody's rate is.

But then there's all these things you need to compare.

Is there a cancellation fee?

How long is the thing in effect?

So you could go in and sign up for a month at a time, but then you gotta remember to do it again next month.

The kind of stuff that you're not used to having to pay attention to on a regular basis.

You'd basically just get your electric bill and pay it.

You could do this.

But again, it's a lot of work.

- It's a lot of work.

That's where councilperson, Jenny Spencer, my councilperson, said people should just chill out for a couple, well, chill out for a couple months because again, in a couple months it's gonna get better.

But what happens during the interim, it really is gonna affect people's bottom line quite dramatically.

- Right.

Jo, let's talk a little bit about this from the state angle, the PUCO, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio overseas the utilities, but it really doesn't have anything to do with these prices.

The prices, as the utilities have said, are being increased because of supply chain issues, the demand, all kinds of other international factors.

- Right.

You know, that price was determined by the wholesale market factors involved with that months ago.

This could be a substantial increase.

I mean, double digits, it's a big deal.

And you know, the PUCO, they can't lower the price, okay.

But they can look at the providers and certify them, make sure that everything's legit.

So that's about as much as they can do right now.

(tense music) - Eight drillers applied to frack under state owned lands this week when administrative rules establishing the process were enacted.

Republicans in the State House passed legislation last year that makes it easier for companies to acquire leases for parcels on state owned lands, including state parks.

You can frack underneath that land.

You can't set up a operation on top of the state park, but you can be next to it and go underneath administrative rules establishing that leasing process going to affect this week.

Jo, are we gonna have a fracking boom on public land in Ohio?

- Well, that kind of remains to be seen, but on the very first day there were eight applications from companies who want to drill on those public lands.

Now, that has to go through a whole process.

But the spokesman for the Oil and Gas Association, Mike Chasy, referred to it as a ribbon cutting 'cause it was really the first day that these businesses could get in there and know the rules and file under the rules.

But as I said, this is just a step in the process and there will be other steps that they'd have to take.

Drilling probably wouldn't happen for at least six months.

- What's interesting is lawmakers, Republicans leading the way in 2011 passed legislation that first allowed for fracking on state lands.

It never took its full force though, because their administrative rules were never written.

There weren't people appointed initially to the commission for that.

However, that now is in effect.

And there was an amendment that was passed late last year that said states is not as though they could, but they shall.

Basically forcing them to look at these applications and to allow them if they pass that process you talked about.

- Yeah, yeah.

And the thing is that you've gotta think about the federal government being involved here because the federal government also has some things going on and that could affect how the state operates when it comes to drilling for gas.

- That amendment or that law, last amendment that was passed last year also designated natural gas as green energy.

And it was something that if you look at the reporting on that dark money entities linked to Ohio's gas industry, were behind that.

But natural gas stuff you frack for is a green energy.

- Well, you know, that depends on who you talk to.

The environmentalists certainly don't think so, and they've filed suit over a lot of things, but that's one of the things that they take contention with.

When you look at where they are drilling, they're going to be drilling next to, not in the state parks, but next to as you said.

And that affects a lot of different things.

It affects traffic, it affects noise, and a bunch of other things.

When you talk about green energy and you talk about nature, there's a whole lot that goes into that.

- I love this.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has a spokesman who didn't give us a whole lot of information.

That guy's name is Andy Chow.

- You think you'd have an in with that guy, don't you think?

- Yeah.

I'm reading here that he didn't provide further details, he didn't talk about who the applicants were.

So that stuff will be posted on the website.

But to that point, we don't know yet who's applying and specifically where.

We heard about Salt Fork State Park in an application earlier.

But there might be others, there might be places nearer to where we are in northeast Ohio, but certainly throughout the state, we just don't have the details yet.

- Exactly.

(tense music) - Two Northeast Ohio lawmakers are behind a bill to legalize recreational marijuana for adult use and to allow the growth of up to six pot plants per household for personal use.

House bill 168 is the work of Lake County Republican, Jamie Calendar and Hudson Democrat, Casey Weinstein.

The Adult use Act, which is called attempts to get out in front of an expected November ballot issue to legalize recreational marijuana.

Jo, Weinstein's argument is that lawmakers have to pass this bill because then they can maintain control.

They wouldn't have that if a statute passed in November.

- And that's the argument that has resonated.

That's why we have medical marijuana, basically, because if you remember, the medical marijuana folks were trying to put that on the ballot.

And when the lawmakers saw that they were making some headway with that effort and that it was likely going to happen without the lawmakers being involved, they jumped in.

So Weinstein's making this, he's saying this upfront, he's saying, "If you want control, you need to go in here now.

You need to set the rules and we need to do it as a legislature."

- Does it seem inevitable that Ohio will have recreational marijuana given the fact that we were told there'll never be medicinal marijuana in Ohio and there was, and things didn't explode.

And we see neighbors like Michigan that have recreational marijuana, and yet we're hearing top state leaders, the governor, the heads of both the House and the Senate who say they're not for legalizing adult use of marijuana.

It seems though it kind of marches in that direction.

- When you've got marijuana, legal marijuana on your borders, you're going to have some of that infiltrate into the state, of course.

It is a matter of time, but the leaders that we have right now have been on record.

Governor DeWine, for example, has been very against the idea of legalizing marijuana.

And so they're still trying to stick to that and hold that as long as they can.

- People age 21 and over could purchase marijuana taxed at 10%.

That's what this proposal is.

And the taxes will go to the Ohio Department of Public Safety to combat illegal drug trafficking, to K through 12 education, to the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to assist people who have substance abuse disorder, local governments, states, general revenue fund, all kinds of ways that money would be used.

What's interesting too is, and a lot of people don't know this, but they sell what they call flower, which is marijuana that you put into a joint or that you can smoke and you're not allowed to smoke it, you're supposed to vape it.

And Casey Weinstein said he wants to put an amendment to the act that he's already put together because he thinks it personally he says, "I think it's silly that you sell it and then tell people they're not allowed to smoke it."

It's sort of like the old fireworks law where you could buy fireworks in Ohio, but you're not allowed to set them.

- [Jo] Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what he's saying.

And basically he's probably right about that.

If you wanted to get marijuana in Ohio right now, you could get it very easily by taking a two hour drive, either any direction basically.

- Right, but if you were here, you couldn't smoke it?

- Right.

If you're here, you can't smoke it, supposedly.

(tense music) - The Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Ohio ballot board was not beyond its discretion in determining that state issue 1, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution is a single issue and not several amendments.

It had the potential to scuttle the entire effort in terms of pointing toward November, didn't it, Jo?

Yeah, it sure did.

I mean, the people who were bringing this lawsuit said the ballot board got it wrong, that it should have been at least two parts, maybe more in a petition.

Now, if that would've happened, if the Ohio Supreme Court would've come back and said, "Yeah, they're right, this should be more than one," then they would've had to go back to square one.

They would've had to refash the petitions.

They would've had to try to get the signatures.

It would've been hard to get all those signatures.

It's still hard to get all those signatures that they need by July 5th.

They need about 414,000 valid signatures to put this on the November ballot.

And so they would've had a lot of setback there.

But this was, as you said, a 7/0 decision.

And so now there are two lawsuits before the Supreme Court on the potential constitutional amendment, not three.

- So another one of those things could essentially avert the August election.

Do we know whether ruling on that will come soon?

- Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it?

You know, we hope if it comes, it comes soon because, we know that the boards of elections are preparing, this takes time.

You just can't hold an election overnight.

The people who brought the suit have asked the Supreme Court to take action quickly.

And generally if the court is going to take action, it will take action pretty quickly.

But we'll have to wait and see.

- I thought there was some really great reporting by Andrew Tobias from cleveland.com.

He talked to some sources who said when there was a meeting about this, for the people that want to have the August election and want to scuttle state issue 1, the advice was you don't say abortion.

You don't say 60%.

You don't bring up social issues that divide even Republicans, the focus will be on protecting the constitution from special interest and that's it.

That's the strategy.

The legislative leader speaking to lobbyists.

And these lobbyists, you've gotta remember, were in the middle of a budget process at the state level.

And these lobbyists, a lot of them have projects, things that they want funded in that budget.

He's telling these lobbyists, Senator Huffman and Senator Hoops are saying here, "If you don't go and and help get this out here, we're not going to be able to to pass it."

And he's asking them for their help, but what he's saying is, don't be so specific, because when you start talking about the 60% proposal, people start thinking, "Well, what it is, what is it now?"

- [Mike] Right.

- And when you start talking about abortion, a lot of republicans like some abortion rights.

They don't wanna go into anywhere.

It's close.

They're looking at polling right now that kind of shows it maybe at a 50% level if you believe that polling, and it's really, that's skeptical, but you know, it's close.

And so the more things you throw in there, the more details you throw in there, the more it muddy is the water and the more advantage the other side has.

(tense music) - As we begin Pride Month, LGBTQ plus people say the political climate in Ohio has been less than hospitable, especially for transgender men and women.

This week, Attorney General Dave Yost, in an advisory opinion said transgender bathroom restrictions don't violate state law.

The Green County prosecutor had asked for an opinion to determine whether Ohio public facilities can require people to use bathrooms that align with their biological sex assigned at birth and not their gender expression.

Green County is the same county where a judge ruled in favor of a transgender woman who was accused of indecent exposure for changing in the women's locker room of a YMCA, even though she had permission to do so.

Ken, the legal opinion here by the Attorney General would seem to give public facilities a green light to restrict access based on sex at birth assignments.

- Yeah.

And so if we could just connect a couple of those dots.

First of all, the verdict was handed down in that one in the Green County, trans woman was found not guilty of getting changed in that locker room.

And also the request from Green County actually came at the behest of the Xenia City Council who said that they were in the mix to take down this particular trans woman.

So, there's a little bit of backstory there and animus that has fueled this.

That said, yes, Attorney General Yost's opinion does open that door.

And it does come at the same time as in the Ohio House.

They have introduced a new bill to separate, to have only single sex bathrooms that are multi-use bathrooms in all schools and colleges.

So, whereas before, and people think that Ohio, I've been reading this online, "Oh, Ohio's been involved in the bathroom debate before."

We actually have not.

There was a proposal a few years ago, but it never actually progressed to a house bill.

So this is the first time that Ohio is officially waiting into passing bills in the legislature to restrict bathroom use.

- The opinion by the Attorney General is not a law.

- [Ken] Nope.

- But advocates fear that it'll be interpreted, interpreted as such and would guide how Ohio proceeds.

- And that's why these opinions are asked for.

He didn't come out of nowhere and just offer these, he offers opinions on any number of other things without being requested.

But this is not one of them.

This comes at the request of a prosecutor, and they're specifically asking for this opinion to back up their legal course of action.

It's just not out of nowhere.

It's connected to something that's going on there.

- And what about in that opinion that he, again, brought up this idea that cisgender men would take advantage of these looser bathroom restrictions and basically, men trying to get into women's bathrooms.

- Right, it's just one of those kind of tired tropes that's put out there that associates predatory behavior in bathrooms when the research is saying that's just not what's happening.

But if you find one or two cases of that, they drown out everything else because there's such loud cases.

But there's no epidemic of men going into women's restrooms and being predators there.

That's just not what's happening.

And even if there was, which again, there's not, that's not connected to trans people needing to use the bathroom, which is what the actual issue is here.

- Buckeye Flame reported recently, this is not just Ohio now, a national terrorism advisory issued by the Department of Homeland Security because of a rising threat of violence against LGBTQ plus community, the advisory sites, some of the threats in violence at drag story events, which you'd seen in northeast Ohio as well, but wow, a homeland security advisory now.

- Yeah, it's not great, Mike.

What happened to that sitcom?

We gotta bring that one back.

- [Mike] Happy Pride Month.

- Yeah, happy Pride Month.

And not only does it reflect events that have happened in northeast Ohio, they specifically cited what happened in Chesterland with the Molotov cocktails that were thrown at a church that was hosting a drag queen story hour for children.

So yeah, what appall to put over Pride Month to be thinking about what are things gonna look like?

The Buckeye Flame puts out a Pride guide.

We're getting close to a hundred Pride events that will be taking place all across Ohio.

So on the one hand, yay, on the other hand, we actually have seen the evidence of our pride guide being shared on neo-Nazi chatter sites as a guide to where to go to protest.

So that's just, as a journalist, that's a weird position to be in, to be providing that roadmap.

- You're going to be participating in and celebrating Pride activities in Cleveland this weekend.

What is the feeling amongst the community that's going to be there?

Is there actual fear going into this?

- We're not really seeing, and we'll be in Columbus in a couple weeks in Cincinnati and some of the bigger cities.

I don't think the fear is as great as, I'm gonna say this wrong.

And I feel like I've said it wrong repeatedly on the show, Bell Fountain, is that right?

- [Mike] Yes.

- Wow!

I live in Ohio.

I feel like that was very validating.

Whereas in Bell Fountain where there's going to be a protest with neo-Nazis and the fear there is much bigger.

So I think when you're seen, because only a fraction of those hundred Pride events are in urban in city environments.

So many of them are in rural areas.

And I think there's a lot more fear there about what those protests could look like.

(tense music) - The Progressive Field hotdogs known for their antic filled on-field race at every game have been busy on Twitter at Cle hotdogs.

Since mid-November, they've been posting Tweets, 232 to be exact, where the first word of each tweet is a word and the lyrics to the Backstreet Boys song, "I Want It That Way."

They did it in reverse order.

And now if you scroll down their Twitter feed, you'll be ready for karaoke.

If you've ever been to Progressive Field, then you know the hotdogs, ketchup, mustard, and onion have a little derby race every home game.

Ketchup cheats by the way.

They also have their own Twitter handle at Cle hotdogs.

And since mid-November, the hotdogs have been posting a series of tweets, 232 of them to be exact.

We didn't know this until they then announced it with their last tweet that said, "Hey, why don't you read back through those 232 tweets and read them in order and read the first word of every one of them."

And if you do it, what you end up is the lyrics to "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys.

- [Ken] It's wonderful.

- Why?

I don't know.

But to get it to do that, they had to do it in backward order.

So the last word of the song, all the way to the first for 232 different tweets.

What's going on?

- First of all, hashtag I stand with ketchup because that was shots fired here.

- [Mike] You weren't here a decade ago or 15, 20 years ago.

Ketchup with a cheater.

- Mike, I have a friend from college that actually participates in this race.

And the game I went to, she was ketchup.

So I will be standing in defense.

- [Ken] That was a lot.

- [Mike] There was a time when ketchup cheated.

I'm telling you, there were people holding signs at Progressive Field.

- [Ken] You need to work through that.

But the point is here, the point is here, the level of dedication to create something.

I love stories like this.

This is just cleverness incarnate.

You know that somewhere the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District is like, "Oh, we gotta up our game," right?

Because there's just such clever tweeting going on from these institutions in northeast Ohio and it brings more people in, and yay, joy.

- Hey, it's not just you, Wally Water drop from New York, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

There are some other crafty ones out there.

- [Ken] There are crafty ones.

- And it's funny.

They begin the Backstreet Boys song, "You are my fire."

And it starts with the first tweet, "You can't make this up only in Cleveland."

The next tweet was "Are you ready for kids Sunday fun day?"

And then we get to, "Oh my, the belt has changed buns once again."

And then finally, "Fire it up onion," and it goes on and on.

Just some crafty stuff.

- [Abbey] Dedication.

(tense music) - Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on WKSU "Morning Edition" host Amy Eddings takes a turn in the host chair, part of our rotation of guest hosts in the post Rick Jackson era.

We'll talk to energy reporter Kathy Ann Kowalski about those skyrocketing electric bills and what consumers can do about them.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

(gentle upbeat music)