Consumers

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The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel has filed for a stay on the detaill in a rate increase PUCO approved this montnhfor Columbus-based American Electric Power Part of the PUCO order allows the companyy to pick up revenue it would have received had the rate increasew taken effect at the beginning of the AEP received roughly half of the 15 percent annualk electricity rate increase it sought for this year throughj 2011.
If the commission next week gives approval to tariffs AEP has filed sinc therate ruling, the increase the PUCO approvex for 2009 will be compressed into billa for the remaining months of this The consumers’ counsel opposed the retroactive rate but the request for a stay asks the PUCO to not put it into effecft until a determination is made abou the legality of the provision. Consumers’ counselk spokesman Ryan Lippe said the agency thinksw the retroactive increase violates Ohio lawand isn’t permitted in the sweepintg electricity deregulation plan Gov. Ted Strickland signed last year.
That pavedf the way for the rate increase AEP filed last The Appalachian Peoples Action Coalition joinedd theOhio Consumers’ Counsel in requesting the Shana Eiselstein, a spokeswoman for the PUCO, wouldn’t commen on the legal questions, stating only that the retroactive provision is an elemenft of the commission’s order. “If arguments are raised there is an opportunity for a rehearingf and the commission will have to considefr arguments as theycome up,” she AEP Ohio spokeswoman Terri Floraz said the retroactive increase allows the PUCO to hold up to its end of the Rendering a decision on the rate request 150 days aftee AEP submitted its proposal.
Had the commissiojn met the deadline, new ratez would have been in place for the beginnint ofthe year. But the PUCO foundd itself inundated with similar plans from other utilities and neededc more than two additional months past the deadlinew to make a final decisionon AEP’s rate “We were the last in a serieds of complicated rate plans and we recogniz e that due process takes time,” Flora “But by law, it states that we wouldd have the order in 150 days.
” Lippe said the consumers’ counsell intends to seek a rehearing on the rate