The Associated Press
and The Cincinnati Enquirer

A coalition of consumer groups has begun a campaign to urge Gov. Bob Taft to set the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on a new course by dumping the commission's chairman.

The debate over whether Alan Schriber, a champion of the electric deregulation law passed in 1999, should be reappointed comes as the commission is wrestling with the end of the first phase of that deregulation.

The coalition, which includes Citizen Power, the Cleveland Legal Aid Society, Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy and AARP, contends the commission that regulates gas, electric and phone companies has repeatedly disregarded consumers' interests.

It wants Taft to find somebody else for the seat held by Schriber, a Wyoming resident and former Miami University economist. His five-year term on the commission expires in April.

Schriber, who also served as a PUCO commissioner from 1983-89 after being appointed by then-Gov. Richard Celeste, and six other candidates were interviewed Tuesday for the seat by a nomination committee.

That panel voted to send Taft the names of Schriber and three other interviewees. The other three are:

•  Thomas Baillieul, a Columbus resident who is leading the federal Energy Department's program to clean up a closed nuclear facility in West Jefferson, Madison County.

• William S. Hood, an Upper Arlington resident.

• Susan Norton, a Cleveland resident.

The appointment is subject to confirmation by the Ohio Senate.

His critics do not want Taft to pick Schriber.

"He is so anti-consumer that we believe it would be harmful to ratepayers for him to be there another five years," said David Hughes, executive director of Pittsburgh-based Citizen Power. "During his tenure, we have seen commission decisions that we have never seen before: refusal to hold hearings, orders that go against the record, refusal to allow interventions and orders that we believe violate the law."

Schriber defended the commission's work over the past five years and said consumer advocates are free to participate in the regulatory process, and do.

"We are a quasi-judicial body who engages in a very delicate balancing act," Schriber said. "We balance the interests of consumers with those of companies, and for every consumer advocate who criticizes us I can find a utility who would also criticize us."

Ohio, like other states such as Illinois and Virginia that moved to competition, are near the end of market development periods where residential rates were frozen - and some aren't happy that more competition hasn't developed.

Cinergy's Cincinnati Gas & Electric subsidiary, for example, has given the commission a plan that would end the rate freeze early in return for limited rate increases if its costs go up. Akron-based FirstEnergy has made a similar request, as has Columbus-based American Electric Power.

As a result, Wall Street is closely watching the Ohio regulatory proceedings closely.

Among the coalition's complaints is a ruling that allowed FirstEnergy Corp. to recover $6.9 million from customers for investments and to count switches to FirstEnergy's own affiliate as "competition" under a 2000 transition plan for electricity providers.

FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen Raines said the transition plan featured significant benefits for consumers and that rates have been flat at subsidiary Ohio Edison since 1990 and at Toledo Edison and Cleveland Electric Illuminating for long before that.

"It's very easy to dig through the minutiae and find a piece of the rate you disagree with, but I think it's very hard to disagree with that level of rate stability," she said.