Strickland: Utilities board choice will signal regulation philosophy

The choices will reflect the governor's values and judgment, he said.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Lobbyists for phone companies and industries that are the largest electricity users are front-runners to serve on -- and perhaps one day chair -- the panel that polices Ohio's gas, electric and phone companies.
Upcoming appointments under new Gov. Ted Strickland have advocates for residential customers worried about the future of rates and service.
Critics had hoped that Strickland, the first Democratic governor in 16 years, would change the direction of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which some have viewed as too cozy with -- and easy on -- utility giants such as FirstEnergy Corp., American Electric Power and AT & amp;T.
"He should start over from scratch," said Sandy Buchanan, executive director of Ohio Citizen Action, a nonprofit consumer and voter advocacy group.
The commission's decisions on natural gas, electric and telephone service affect reliability and how much customers pay each month on their bills.
Utility interests are heavily represented on a panel that nominates candidates the governor chooses from to fill the PUCO's open seat. Already the governor has signaled that he will not initially bump Alan Schriber from the commission's chairmanship.
Consumer groups say that under Schriber, the PUCO has sided too often with the utilities, especially on phone and electric cases. Schriber denies it, pointing to the stability of rates during his eight years as chairman.
What Strickland says
Strickland, who gets four appointments to the five-member commission in his first term, says the selections "will be a reflection of my judgment and values."
For the first opening, the nominating council sent him the names of two industry lobbyists, the PUCO's legal director and an energy consultant.
The governor is not tipping his hand, but said the choice will be "someone who has a high degree of common sense, who is not ideologically driven but who is capable of understanding complex data and who is concerned about the consumer."
Industry insiders say the front-runner is Charles Moses, president of the Ohio Telecom Association and a former official in the administration of Ohio's last Democratic governor, Richard Celeste. A Strickland campaign backer, Moses is the only one of the four finalists who applied when the nominating committee reopened the application process at Strickland's request.
Also in the running is Gretchen Hummel, a lobbyist who represents Industrial Energy Users-Ohio and Vectren Corp., a natural-gas company based in Evansville, Ind. She formerly was legal director for the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, the state's watchdog for residential customers.
Groups unhappy
Consumer groups have been unhappy with the lack of progress in trying to lower the price of electricity, which regulators promised two years ago, and with recent commission decisions lessening the penalties phone companies pay for failing to quickly fix outages.
Strickland said Citizen Action has every right to complain, but he played down their concerns.
"It's unfortunate when judgments are made about people based on superficial factors. I think individuals should be judged on the totality of their life and work," he said.
Schriber said he too is frustrated by the delay in getting competition to the marketplace, but rate increases in Ohio have been lower than in surrounding states.
Competition was supposed to begin -- and drive rates down -- in 2005, but power suppliers have been reluctant to enter Ohio because they cannot significantly beat incumbent utilities' rates.
Northern Ohio customers of Akron-based FirstEnergy, who have some of the highest electric bills in the nation, would see little difference from a new supplier because only the sale of electricity itself is open to competition. A major part of a FirstEnergy bill goes to the cost of two nuclear power plants.
Schriber hopes discussions can begin and the parties can avoid the divisions that resulted from the 1999 bill that was supposed to open the power market.
"I think whether it's legislation or what, we're going to have to be adjusting electricity," Schriber said. "I hope we're all more educated."