Lines drawn in Columbus: market forces vs. regulation

Lines drawn in Columbus: market forces vs. regulation

It has become crystal clear that Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted remains a true believer in deregulation as the way of providing Ohioans with the least expensive electricity.

“The best way to adequately protect electric customers ... is a marketplace,” Husted declared in his eight-point Energy Policy Guiding Principles and Goals. “A real preserved market option is essential to any long-term energy policy.”

Meanwhile, Gov. Ted Strickland, who worked with the Ohio Senate for unanimous passage of S.B 221, remains committed to that energy bill, which would return to regulated prices set by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio until such time that the PUCO determines that a free market actually exists. Admittedly, identifying such a market is not an easy call, but few people in the energy debate believe one actually exists today.

The energy debate in Ohio has been a complicated and convoluted journey over the past dozen years. We remember when Ohio Edison Co. was firmly opposed to deregulation, while the big users of electricity, especially the steel mills, were pushing it. Today, First Energy argues against a return to regulation and the big users are arguing for it.

We were against deregulation then. We’re against it now.

Caps due to expire

We believe there is good reason to fear large price increases if rate caps are allowed to expire at the end of this year and no reliable regulatory mechanism is in place.

The state’s energy bill remains an incredibly complicated piece of legislation, and there are literally dozens of constituencies lobbying the Legislature and the governor in their own special interests.

The political machinations in Columbus are mind boggling. Republican Husted, who is arguing the merits of free markets in true laissez faire fashion was not above trying to buy the support of renewable energy advocates by promising them state subsidies and higher benchmarks than Democrat Strickland proposed.

Wind power, clean coal, next-generation nuclear, the ability of manufacturers and dairy farmers to buy electricity at rates that will allow them to stay in business — these are all important issues that must be addressed in the energy bill.

But Husted, Strickland and every politician who has met with one or a dozen or a hundred of the lobbyists working Columbus these days have to remember one thing: Virtually every voter receives an electricity bill every month. And it doesn’t matter how many lobbyists are happy when Senate Bill 221 eventually passes and is signed by the governor. If the effect of the bill is a noticeable increase in electricity costs for the voters next year or the year after, the politicians will pay at the polls.