ON THE HILL:

Reliable electricity priority topic for Ohio co-ops at NRECA’s 2023 legislative conference.

In April, 65 employees and board members representing 21 of Ohio’s electric cooperatives attended the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s 2023 Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.

Attendees met with nine Ohio representatives, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Sen. J.D. Vance to discuss issues affecting our industry: electric generation, reliability, supply chain challenges, and federal permitting processes. During legislative meetings, Ohio attendees also highlighted the impacts of the Department of Energy’s Transformer Rule and how it would severely affect electric reliability and raise costs.

URE was represented by Mike Aquillo, CXO/VP member services. “The legislative conference was once again a great opportunity for cooperatives across the country to come together and discuss the energy policy issues impacting our members,” Aquillo said. “The Ohio cooperatives showed up in force, had very productive meetings with our elected officials, and clearly communicated our concerns, specifically with the declining thermal baseload generation and its potential serious impacts to the reliability that our members — their constituents — know and depend on.”