Ohio's Fight to Preserve Energy Competition

Ohio regulators recently approved a problematic, watered-down subsidy for investor-owned utility FirstEnergy Corp. amounts to corporate welfare to protect captive ratepayers of its monopoly utility segment from the poor management of the company’s competitive generation portfolio. But the real fight is yet to come.

FirstEnergy announced plans to join American Electric Power Ohio (AEP) in lobbying the state Legislature to re-regulate its generation assets. This would backtrack groundbreaking reforms enacted last decade that opened up the Ohio power industry to competition and enabled customers to choose their supplier. Worse, it would set a dangerous precedent of destroying market institutions to rescue fledgling companies at the expense of successful competitors and consumers.