By John McCarthy
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - The state's top utility watchdog, whose office destroyed a study that critics say could have saved consumers billions of dollars, is the subject of two state investigations and two meetings set for next week, officials said Thursday.

The Senate Public Utilities Committee moved up to Wednesday a meeting it had scheduled next month to study issues surrounding competition in the electric utility industry. The move accommodated a request by Sen. Robert Spada to question Ohio Consumers' Counsel Robert Tongren about the study.

The governing board of Tongren's office also will meet Tuesday to discuss how long records are kept.

Also on Thursday, the attorney general's office, which appoints members of the governing board, told board chairman Jerome Solove it was arranging interviews with OCC staffers who may have been involved in the retention and destruction of records.

Inspector General Tom Charles confirmed Thursday that his office was investigating Tongren's office, but declined further comment.

The study that was destroyed was a consultant's report that would have recommended shielding some northern Ohio utility customers from paying billions of dollars.

Tongren said his office discarded the $579,000 draft report in July, months after his staff changed an internal policy, requiring records to be kept for one year instead of two.

The report included a consultant's recommendations on how much Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. should be allowed to collect to recoup what it spent building power plants before the electricity market was deregulated in 2001.

The costs already were figured into customer bills, which did not increase.

At issue is whether the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio would have ordered the utility to reduce that charge if there was evidence that FirstEnergy's power-plant costs didn't amount to what was estimated by some at $8.7 billion.

Two Ohio newspapers reported that the consultant report recommended that FirstEnergy should recover no more than $4 billion through such fees.

Ohio probably would have lost a court fight to lower the fees because the Public Utilities Commission had supported the higher figure in several reviews of FirstEnergy's rates before deregulation, Tongren said.

The Senate group also will hear testimony from representatives of utilities, marketers, business customers and other interested parties, said Sen. Louis Blessing, a Cincinnati Republican.