Strickland would veto latest Electric Reform Bill

[OhioBlue]

Gov. Ted Strickland today said he will veto the electric utility regulation bill that House Speaker Jon Husted unveiled Thursday. It will harm Ohio consumers as well as business and industry, the governor said.

The bill would allow FirstEnergy Corp. to escape rate regulation by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and instead base them on higher-priced, volatile wholesale electric markets.

Strickland said the provision alone will expose northern Ohio consumers and businesses to "skyrocketing electricity prices."


"After reviewing the . . . bill, I am today announcing that I would veto the bill if it passes in its current form because it would threaten our ability to both keep and create jobs in Ohio," the governor said in a statement.

http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/04/strickland_says_hell_veto_late.html

Latest electricity reform bill leaves all sides in the dark
Posted by John Funk April 10, 2008 13:57PM
Categories: Breaking News, Energy, Open, Openers
Updated 9:33 p.m.

Columbus - The latest proposal for regulating electricity in Ohio left utilities, manufacturers and consumer advocates unsure who would make out and who might get stuck.

Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted today released a total rewrite of the legislation that Gov. Ted Strickland proposed last August and the Ohio Senate largely rewrote in October.

The struggle has been over whether to continue down the path to unregulated power prices that started in 2000, or retreat into regulated rates, a move that FirstEnergy Corp. has fiercely argued against and threatened to drag the state into court.

http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/04/house_republicans_revealing_re.html

I'm glad the Gov. is standing his ground. The House seems to definitley be looking out for First Energy.

[liberal N proud]

1. We actually have a good Governor for a change

[Jack 4 Ohio]

2. Thank you Governor Strickland, thank you OhioBlue

I am disappointed to see Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted trying to rush legislation that favors First Energy, and other electric utilities, by thwarting Governor Strickland's efforts to protect Ohioians.

I recently published an open letter on my blog calling for a HALT on our slide into electric deregulation :

http://jack4ohio.blogspot.com/2008/03/stop-that-electric-deregulation.html

But this is not what I had in mind.

It would appear that the republican controlled Ohio House is doing a good job representing the interests of First Energy at the expense of the people that elected them.

Thank you again OhioBlue.

[OhioBlue]

3. Thanks Jack

Thanks so much for bringing attention to this issue. I'm glad we have your focus on this during the campaign. The more people learn about what may happen, the better. This has the potential to drastically burden Ohioans. It also will be a further deterrent to business as First Energy's rates are already uncompetitive.

[Jack 4 Ohio]

4. amen OhioBlue ! FirstEnergy is charging us an extra $20 each month

with the blessing of the PUCO & Ohio Supreme court. See an excerpt below from an article by the Cleveland Scene Magazine.

...
FirstEnergy gave her $11,600, according to an Ohio Citizen Action report. It would prove to be money well spent.

Between the near-nuclear disaster at its Davis-Besse plant and serving as the catalyst of the worst blackout in U.S. history, FirstEnergy wasn't doing so hot. Things were about to get worse.

In 1999, the state allowed the company to charge customers "transitional costs" to help pay for the building of its nuclear plants. But the state gave the fee an expiration date, barring FirstEnergy from collecting the $20-per-customer charge after 2005.

Afraid of losing the $3 billion that fee would bring in, FirstEnergy asked the Public Utilities Commission whether it could simply relabel the charge as a "rate stabilization" fee and continue collecting. PUCO agreed, though it was against the law.

By 2004, the Ohio Consumer Commission had sued FirstEnergy and PUCO on behalf of customers.

Just months after the lawsuit was announced, FirstEnergy CEO Anthony Alexander held a fund-raiser at his home for the Supreme Court justices. Among the attendees was O'Connor. That night, Alexander raised $40,500, which was immediately dumped into five judges' coffers.
...
...
...
The Supreme Court ruled that FirstEnergy was allowed to continue collecting the fee, despite what the law said.

http://clevescene.com/2008-03-19/news/mo-money-mo-justice/print

So we are being bilked of $3,000,000,000 and after this year we will be subject to unregulated electric bills ?

Let us make sure this DOES NOT HAPPEN.

[Jack 4 Ohio]

5. Electric utility dereg bill updates

Governor Strickland and speaker Jon Husted are locked in a battle over the electric utility regulation bill, it was reported in Ohio Public news this morning.

FirstEnergy CEO Anthony Alexander and FirstEnergy Political Action Committee have contributed well over a million dollars in campaign contributions, mostly to republican candidates and causes (based on information from Ohio SOS site).

Most, but not all, of the republican Ohio supreme court justices have also received big contributions via FirstEnergy CEO Alexander.

No wonder speaker Husted is having such a hard time coming up with something that is good for FirstEnergy and palatable for the rest of Ohio.

No doubt, legislation that favors FirstEnergy will result in CEO Alexander getting a fat raise to his multi-million dollar executive compensation, which in turn will ensure a steady flow of contributions to the state republican party and candidates.

Husted is running for a senate seat this year, does he have a serious challenger ?

http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1208594115262640.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/isope/1208521808278930.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

Husted, Republican of Kettering, and Strickland thought they had reached a compromise earlier this week when the speaker heard from American Electric Power's top executives.

They were said to be unhappy that FirstEnergy Corp. would have a clear shot at market prices under the proposed law, while the rest of the state's utilities would have to settle for a slow blending of regulated and market-based rates over five and maybe as long as 10 years, and always under the thumb of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

AEP's rates are the lowest in the state, and the Columbus-based company did not take the bold step FirstEnergy did two years ago to move ownership of its power plants to unregulated but wholly owned subsidiaries.

So now even the other power companies are crying foul, that is how FirstEnergy favorable this legislation is.

[MeDeMax]

6. looks like your campaigning paid off

the energy bill passed with a near unanimous vote.