Politics & PUCO clash in capital

By now, you’ve probably heard of Andre Porter — especially if you live in an area served by FirstEnergy or American Electric Power.

Porter is the head of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, the regulatory agency that oversees rules and policy decisions related to electricity, natural gas and other utilities.

A massive campaign focused on PUCO at the moment concerns the aforementioned companies and the higher customer bills they’ve proposed to keep some unprofitable coal-fired power plants in operation.

The companies say the move is justified, ensuring needed power is generated, jobs are secured and steeper rate hikes are avoided. Consumer advocates and some other power companies and groups say customers shouldn’t be footing the bill for the outdated power plants — and for a company that has hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

That’s a gross oversimplification that will likely prompt angry emails from folks on both sides of the debate, but the FirstEnergy-AEP plan isn’t my focus today. Porter is.

The Alliance native and Marlington High School graduate was appointed PUCO chairman almost a year ago by Gov. John Kasich.

Porter is a public utilities attorney and a former PUCO commissioner who headed the Ohio Department of Commerce for a couple of years before being picked by the governor for his current post.

He’s been hard at work for a year, which makes the final Senate session before the March primary so strange.

DANGEROUS DELAY

The Ohio Senate has to consent on appointments made by the governor. For some reason, senators waited 10 months to put Porter through that process.

That’s a dangerous way to approach appointments. Just ask former Gov. Ted Strickland, whose administration inexplicably forgot to ask for the Senate’s consent in a timely manner on a director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Senators rejected the pick following an investigation that involved the governor’s mansion, inmate workers and a “lucrative tobacco-smuggling business.”

The Senate’s Public Utilities Committee signed off on Porter late on a Tuesday morning, and the full chamber gave its approval a few hours later.

There was little doubt that he’d be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate. But the vote wasn’t unanimous: Democrats rejected the selection.

They argued that the commission, under Kasich’s administration, now includes no Democratic members.

The Senate vote on Porter was 23-9.

Sen. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, explained: “We want to be clear that we do not have a problem with Andre Porter himself. We just believe that the spirit and the intent of the law was to have at least one Democrat serving on the Public Utilities Commission. Democrats in underserved communities want fair representation on the PUCO, and as almost anyone knows that’s involved in utility issues, the underserved communities and the poorer communities have more problems than any other community with utilities in this state.

“So, again, we want to make sure that everybody is fairly represented on the PUCO. And although it is late, we would have hoped that we would not have confirmed Mr. Porter today.”

Marc Kovac is theVindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.