Thanks to Gloria Ferris, we now have the Democratic candidates for governor on the record agreeing that Ohio's deregulation of electric rates was "bad for Ohio" (Flannery) and "a huge mistake" (Strickland). Strickland, at greater length:
I think what we’re seeing on the part of the utility companies today is a desire to reap the benefits of deregulation, while at the same time trying to push a kind of re-regulation that is to their benefit. So in other words, they want the best of both worlds. They want to be deregulated when it is to their financial advantage, and they want the guarantee of being able to recoup whatever investments they make in a new generation capacity. They want the State to guarantee that they will in fact not have to face that risk. So I think the situation we have today is intolerable... [W]e need a Governor who will have a strong consumer advocacy position, and make sure that the people who are appointed to the PUCO are people who have a track record of being concerned about the needs of the consumer.Neither candidate explained exactly how a new governor or his PUCO might go about stuffing the deregulation genie back into its bottle. Nor did Strickland say how he feels about AEP's proposal to make consumers pre-pay to construct a new clean coal plant in Meigs County. Still, it's a good start. Thanks, Gloria.