Protect Ohio utility customers and the consumers’ counsel
It is time for the Ohio General Assembly and Gov. Mike Dewine to take action to protect utility customers from the influence of powerful investor-owned utilities in a meaningful and permanent way.
So much has been written recently about House Bill 6 and the conspiracy to defraud Ohio’s residential electric consumers. What has been missed during this discussion is the nine-year direct assault on consumer protections. The attacks on the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, Ohio’s utility watchdog, have received too little attention, including the most recent attack – the anti-consumer House Bill 246 from state Reps. Larry Householder and Nino Vitale. This bill is a danger to anyone in Ohio who pays a utility bill and it remains on the Ohio House docket as a direct attack on the OCC and all Ohio residential utility consumers.
The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel was created in 1976 to be a state agency giving voice and legal representation for affordable utility bills and reliable service, a role distinct from that of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. The OCC is the only state government agency charged with appearing before the PUCO, Ohio and federal courts, and other agencies to represent and protect Ohio’s residential consumers.
HB 246 would politicize and weaken the OCC by reconstituting the membership of its governing board, resulting in the loss of OCC’S independence. The bill would limit the forums and roles for the OCC’S advocacy for millions of Ohioans.
Why would anyone try to erode the role and authority of Ohio’s consumer watchdog, you ask? There is no budgetary concern for the Ohio legislature to resolve here; the OCC’S revenue comes from investor-owned utility assessments, not taxpayer dollars. Rather, this bill is a thinly veiled attempt by those investor-owned utilities to influence policy and minimize the effectiveness of Ohio consumer protections and its watchdog agency.
Is it a coincidence that in May 2019 – one week after the OCC announced its opposition to HB 6 and a provision in the budget bill that could give Firstenergy “significantly excessive” profits – Householder/vitale’s HB 246 was filed claiming the OCC needed reform? Hardly.
Unfortunately, this attempt to limit or silence the OCC has become standard practice for some in the legislature who have deemed it more important to protect utilities than the general public.
The other attack has been on the OCC’S budget. At its high-water mark, the OCC had a $9.27 million budget. In 2011, after the OCC filed a complaint against a powerful utility for deceptive marketing practices, that utility retaliated against the OCC by convincing the Ohio legislature to approve a 33% cut in the OCC’S budget of $8.5 million, reducing it to $5.64 million. The OCC budget has never been restored, and it is even lower today at $5.54 million.
The OCC has fewer than half the employees it had in 2011 to advocate for consumers and to fight against utilities who have become even more financially strong and politically powerful, as has been demonstrated by the current HB 6 scandal.
And if that were not enough, the Ohio legislature has eliminated a very successful OCC complaint call center and, for a time, would not even allow the OCC to assist consumers with their complaints
HB 246 also would weaken the OCC’S role as utility watchdog by altering its long-standing mission and restricting the OCC from representing residential customers before state and federal courts, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, PJM, Federal Communications Commission, U.S. bankruptcy court, U.S. courts of appeals and the legislature.
Let us prevent another HB 6 from happening to Ohio consumers. Let us do what is right for the people of Ohio. Keep the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel strong. Eliminate HB 246 and restore the OCC budget.
Leigh Herington is a former Democratic Ohio state senator from Ravenna.