The bill would reform the PUCO Nominating Council, which recommends potential PUCO members to the governor, part of a 1982 legislative fig-leaf to ward off popular election of the PUCO. In fact, governors ultimately get to appoint whomever they want, assuming the appropriate nominees apply to the Nominating Council and the council intercepts the correct winks and nods.
Troy’s bill comes in the wake of the federal indictment of former PUCO Chair Samuel Randazzo, whom the Nominating Council nominated for appointment to the commission in 2019. Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Randazzo, and the state Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment, Republicans and Democrats alike. That’s the kind of bipartisanship the Columbus in-crowd likes.
A federal grand jury has charged Randazzo – who must be presumed innocent unless a jury determines otherwise – with 11 counts related to bribery and embezzlement. The indictment alleges that Randazzo, as PUCO chair, took actions favorable to Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for $4.3 million in payments from the mammoth electric utility, which owns the Illuminating, Ohio Edison, and Toledo Edison companies, as well as a slew of out-of-state electric companies in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and West Virginia.
Among other features, the Troy bill would require that at least one PUCO commissioner be a consumer representative appointed from a list submitted by the Office of Consumers’ Counsel, which represents Ohio’s residential utility customers in utility rate cases the PUCO judges.
The bill would also require that, among others, the Nominating Council include a representative of Ohio’s minority communities.
The bill would forbid PUCO members or members of the Nominating Council to have represented or worked with a PUCO-regulated company. And Troy’s bill would also require interviews of prospective PUCO nominees to be held in public. The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel backs Troy’s bill and is calling for its passage.
Despite that support, Troy’s bill will likely face rough sledding in the pro-utility legislature. Indeed, the respective chairs, both Republican, of the House and Sente utilities committees – Rep. Dick Stein, of Norwalk, Sen. Bill Reineke, of Tiffin – each voted for HB 6 in 2019, a bill to bail out money losing nuclear power plants that FirstEnergy then owned.
That the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Nominating Council – as it now operates – is an insiders’ game is little wonder.
Even now, powerful Statehouse forces are seemingly undaunted by the HB 6 affair – that 2019 nuclear plant bailout – and like the status quo just fine. Let insiders take care of insiders – and make consumers pick up the tab.
That’s why Troy’s bill, if it gets more than cursory treatment in Ohio’s House, will draw ferocious opposition – which is precisely why the bill is needed. Utility outsiders need to keep a watch – a close watch – on utility insiders, as Ohioans’ gas and electric bills demonstrate every month.
As it is, the utility lobbies are vast and relentless. There are at least 70 Statehouse lobbyists registered for gas, electric and telephone companies that do business in Ohio, with electric utilities fielding the most. What a surprise.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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