A Rebuttal of False and Misleading Utility Claims

This week the OMA, together with a broad coalition of partners, produced an extensive rebuttal of false and misleading claims being made by Ohio electric utilities regarding HB 239, another massive subsidy proposal for two old, uneconomic generating plants, one in Ohio and one in Indiana. Yes, Indiana. The plants are jointly owned by several utilities through the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC).

“Several false and misleading claims about the legislation have been fabricated and reinforced by the utilities in an attempt to convince legislators to provide the OVEC plants with above-market subsidies on the backs of Ohio ratepayers,” writes the coalition.

“These are clear and true facts: The utilities want a subsidy to operate and maintain uneconomic OVEC power plants … If approved, the legislation would not be the utilities’ first consumer-paid subsidy. Ohio’s investor-owned utilities received at least $9.2 billion in “stranded assets” and “regulatory transition” payments from 2000 to 2010. The proposed OVEC legislation is bad for customers, bad for competitive markets, and bad for Ohio.” 10/19/2017