AEP rides our gravy train while lobbing threatens. Yet PUCO just OKed another hike.
Morgan Harper is a lawyer and co-founder of Columbus Stand Up!
Zeb Larson is a writer, historian and software engineer. He's a member of Columbus Stand Up! and lives in Grandview with his wife, son and herd of cats.
Amid a proposed rate hike that has run into a great deal of public opposition and new polling indicating 94% of Ohioans cite rising energy costs as a concern, AEP is threatening to leave downtown Columbus where its regulatory and external affairs offices are housed.
Gov. Mike DeWine predictably sprang into action, assuring he would make sure they don’t leave the state altogether.
State officials who are supposed to regulate this government-granted monopoly instead bow and scrape to beg them to stay, which is emblematic of how broken utility regulation is in Ohio. Central Ohio residents must demand the next governor of Ohio chart a new course to lower consumer and small business electricity bills.
AEP Ohio is a subsidiary of American Electric Power, which is a private, investor-owned utility publicly traded on the stock market.
AEP first started moving into Ohio in 1980 when a long-stalled deal to purchase Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Co. and Ohio Power came to fruition; the company’s headquarters moved from New York to Columbus.
We need PUCO commissioners to take their role seriously
AEP Ohio serves over 200,000 households throughout central and southern Ohio. The grand bargain behind granting private companies such a large market share for an essential service is that they will be subject to thorough regulation. And that’s where Ohio has gone horribly off course.
Instead of regulating AEP Ohio, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio regularly approves the company’s requested rate hikes, often with limited public testimony or oversight.
For example, reporting suggests neither PUCO nor the Ohio Power Siting Board carefully review the transmission plans proposed by AEP Ohio for cost-effectiveness or necessity. AEP also lobbied state legislators, another government body that should be providing oversight of the utility monopoly, to ensure they passed House Bill 6, which helped ensure state energy policies reduced clean energy requirements, for example.
Ohio state officials' lax approach to utility regulation doesn’t stop there. The state government has actually given AEP over $200 million in taxpayer money in the form of grants and subsidies. Meanwhile, the company continues to post record profits – they clearly do not need help from the state in order to build out transmission, let alone to stay solvent.
But it’s no wonder that with this taxpayer-funded gravy train, AEP feels comfortable threatening Mike DeWine.
The next governor of Ohio must do more to lower consumer utility bills.
They can appoint PUCO commissioners who will take their regulatory role seriously, instead of continuing to grant AEP rate requests.
The governor will also be able to sign legislation into law that would start to rein in AEP Ohio’s abuse of ratepayer funds. For example, State senators Kent Smith and Bill Blessing have introduced a bill that would ban the utility monopoly from charging ratepayers for its lobbying expenditures.
The stakes could not be higher because of the rising demand stemming from Ohio’s data center boom.
PUCO approved another rate increase April 1 for AEP despite testimony and a public campaign opposing the rate increase.
More utility profits will be foisted onto consumers in higher electricity bills unless the next governor of Ohio rediscovers the state’s essential role in holding AEP accountable.
Given Ohio’s track record, that change will not just happen. Citizens of central Ohio will have to demand it. To every candidate in the gubernatorial race, it's your move.