According to the Office of Consumers’ Counsel, Ohio electricity consumers have paid American Electric Power, AES/DP&L and Duke Energy more than $153 million so far in coal plant subsidies. SB 117, to repeal them, is languishing in a Senate committee. The subsidy repeal’s sponsors are Sens. Mark Romanchuk, an Ontario Republican, and Hearcel Craig, a Columbus Democrat.
Meanwhile, the Legislature also is dawdling over a bill to abolish Ohio’s no-refund legal policy in instances when Ohio’s Supreme Court overturns a PUCO-approved rate boost That bill’s sponsors are Reps. Laura Lanese, a Grove City Republican, and Dan Troy, a Willowick Democrat.
The legal rigmarole behind that rule, which dates to a Cincinnati Bell rate case in the 1950s, is kind of like what the British diplomat Palmerston said about a complicated German-Danish dispute: Only three people understood it, he said: One died, one went mad and the third, Palmerston himself, had “forgotten all about it.” But utilities’ lawyers haven’t forgotten the Keco case, as it’s known, which is why utility refunds are comparatively rare.
Any legislator who says he wants Ohio’s utility consumers to get a fair break – but won’t support the Romanchuk-Craig and Lanese-Troy bills – is being … economical … not with ratepayers’ money, but with the truth.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
Above excerpt is from Sudde’s commentary in then Oct. 24, 2021 Columbus Dispatch.
A number of bills have been introduced to repeal parts of the corruption tainted HB 6. Read more at:
Share
