FirstEnergy customers lose chance to save billions in electricity costs

10/17/03

Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus - The office charged with protecting Ohio utility consumers has destroyed a closely guarded consultant's report that might have saved billions of dollars for customers in FirstEnergy electric territory.

..........snip.........

The last few paragraphs are the thesis of the article, so they are my excerpt. A report that would have shown Ohio customers owe $ Billions less in stranded costs was shredded by an industry-friendly bureaucrat in the state government. In other words, we got hosed again.

........excerpt.........
"FirstEnergy wanted two things: They wanted money and they wanted no competition." Tongren said. "We decided in a direction where at least one of FirstEnergy's goals is going to be thwarted: We're going to produce competition."

But Henry Eckhart, a former PUCO commissioner who represented several consumer groups in the debate, said Tongren should have made the LaCapra estimate public. "Why did he keep it hidden?" Eckhart asked. "I know why: They would have had testimony that FirstEnergy wasn't entitled to any - or to very little - in terms of stranded costs."

Hughes of Citizen Power was still more critical of Tongren's actions. "It's his job to protect ratepayers and he did the opposite."
.....end of article ...........

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1066383241264300.xml

edit:link

link?

literally.

i mean bush did it

"{Ohio Consumers' Counsel} Tongren said he did not know that his staff had shortened the
retention period to one year. "

You are the chief counsel running the office but
you did not know that your staff had shortened the retention period of
your office's documents? Are there no computers in the office either on which such a document could be stored?
The ratepayers are hosed yet again.

Love this bit of tortured logic:

"Tongren, too, signed off on the settlement, which allowed FirstEnergy to
collect stranded costs through monthly electric bills for five years.
{utility spokesman} DiNicola said rates did not increase, however, because the costs already
were being figured into existing bills. "

Well gee there sherlock if the stranded cost estimates were too high then I would say the costs which were figured into the bills that each consumer paid was too high and they are entitled to a refund since they have been paying it all along.

And yes we see the twisted corporate illogic running rampant these days. They believe they are ENTITLED to gouge the consumer. Notice how they view the higher rates as their property right.

"If the company's request had not been met, he added, "that would have
been confiscation without representation"

Sorry Jack there is no confiscation of property i.e. a compensable taking if you were not legally entitled to the property in the first place.

When they "deregulated" electricity in Ohio, consumers were stuck with a greater than 6 cent charge--on top of electricity charges from the actual producers--to pay the stranded costs of two nuke plants that went way over budget and some newer coal fired plants. The electricity we buy beyond that is also more than 6 cents/kW*hour. We are paying 13 cents/kW*hour when done. In comparison, parts of Ohio that have purely coal-fired plants pay about 7 or 8 cents/kW*hour.

Northern Ohio consumers are being forced to pay for the project planning mistakes of executives at Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Ohio Edison, and Toledo Edison. The merged company, First Energy, is being bailed out by the Ohio (and Pennsylvania) consumers. First Energy should be allowed to go bankrupt, just like Long Island Light Company (LILCO) did decades ago when they made mistakes. First Energy has huge problems with the Davis-Besse nuclear plant (a big hole in the containment vessel) that has caused high repair costs and loss of service.