Showdown time in Columbus

Showdown time in Columbus

There’s a showdown over energy policy building between Gov. Ted Strickland and Ohio House Speaker John Husted.

Ohio is approaching the end of an experiment launched in 1999 to deregulate the sale of electricity in Ohio. It was a bad experiment to begin with, and we urged against it. Over the last eight years, nothing approaching a free market that would offer Ohioans bargains in electricity has developed. It is past time to recognize that unless something is done to re-establish reasonable regulatory mechanisms, Ohio consumers are in for a rude awakening Jan. 1, 2009.

Some power companies are saying that a 40 percent increase in rates wouldn’t be unreasonable. Others are saying that they have a constitutional right to pursue the best price they can get for their product from any buyer, in state or out.

During a conference call Friday between the governor and several editorial writers from around the state, we attempted to get Strickland to put a number on what he thought would be a reasonable increase. He couldn’t say, and we’re not going to hazard a guess.

Word to the wise

But we will say this. Ohio voters send their representatives to Columbus to protect the voters’ best interests. And cost-of-living issues are high on the voter-interest scale.

Strickland submitted an energy bill to the Senate last August that got bipartisan — indeed, unanimous— support. It would have allowed the Public Utilities Commission to consider a utility company’s cost of providing electricity in setting a rate. The cost standard was rejected by Husted. As was, Strickland says, a “just and reasonable” standard, a “return on equity” formula and, finally, a rate that would prohibit “excessive earnings.”

The present House bill, Strickland says, would strip the PUCO of the ability to protect against runaway rates.

Husted has dragged out the process far longer than was necessary, and one can only guess at his motives. But everyone in Columbus should know that if a bill isn’t passed — and one that will protect both individual consumers and important industries from runaway electricity bills — there will be a political price to be paid at the polls.

Voters get those electric bills every month.