Ohio’s consumer watchdog is urging customers to raise questions about a proposal to raise monthly fixed costs for 1.2 million natural gas customers by at least 30%. That means they would initially have to pay nearly $60 a month before a single cubic foot of gas enters their homes. The amount could increase to $80 a month over seven years.

The state watchdog is now under different leadership than it was last year, when — over the objections of other consumer groups — it signed off on a separate, huge increase for an even larger group of gas customers. Asked about the change, a spokesman for the agency said circumstances are different.

The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel is raising the alarm that Dominion Energy has asked the industry-friendly Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to allow it to increase so-called “distribution” charges from $43.30 a month to $56.34 this year, and then phasing in an additional increase of as much as $29.69 by 2032, the consumers’ counsel said in a filing with the PUCO.

Joining in that filing were Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, the Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio and the Ohio Poverty Law Center. They point out that many of the customers served by Dominion are near the eastern and western boundaries of the state and are likely to earn less than the $67,000 median household income in Ohio.

“Many Dominion Energy consumers face the challenge of poverty, with a number of counties within their service territory experiencing poverty rates exceeding 15%,” consumers’ counsel spokesman J.P. Blackwood said in a statement.

It’s an open question whether Dominion needs the increase to update its gas lines and other infrastructure as it claims. Profits for the year ended Sept. 30 were down 28% compared to a year earlier, but they still came in at $1.7 billion. And CEO Robert Blue’s annual compensation is about $8 million, or 119 times the median Ohio household’s.

The company hasn’t undergone a full rate case in which all of its finances were scrutinized since 2007, the watchdog groups’ filing said. The advocates want ratepayers to contact Dominion and the PUCO and demand a public hearing on the proposed increases. And they want people anywhere in the company’s service territory to be able to attend remotely.

“It is important that the public have their voices heard by their state government (the PUCO),” the filing with the PUCO said.  “As required (by law), consumers are to be invited to participate in the PUCO’s review of the utility’s request for a rate increase by having local public hearings. These will be the first public hearings on the utility’s rates in 16 years!”

Dominion didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The position the consumer’s counsel is taking on the Dominion case is different from the one it took last year when Columbia Gas asked for a huge increase in distribution charges. In that case, it agreed to a maximum jump in fixed monthly charges from $36 to $56 — or more than a 50% — over five years. 

Instead of insisting that Columbia be forced to open its books in a “rate case,” the Office of Consumers’ Counsel agreed to a “stipulation” granting the increase. 

The agency justified the move by arguing that it was a better deal than the $80 increase Columbia was asking for. But other consumer groups didn’t buy it, saying utilities always start out bidding high and that any real examination of the company’s books would have gotten a better deal.

So why did the consumers’ counsel go along with a big rate increase last year, while resisting one now? 

It’s under new leadership, with retiring Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston being succeeded by Maureen Willis. But when asked if new leadership meant a new direction, Blackwood, the spokesman, said circumstances are different.

For one, he said, it’s much earlier in the process with Dominion’s proposed increase. Dominion’s would also take effect much more suddenly, he said.

“Dominion’s proposed $56.31 monthly delivery charge for 2023 is noticeably higher than other gas utilities in Ohio, including Columbia, which has a 2023 monthly delivery charge of $38.62,” Blackwood said in an email. Under the proposal, Dominion could further jack its distribution charges up to $80 a month over the next seven years.

By contrast, the Columbia increases to $60 a month are being phased in over five years. Blackwood added that the consumer’s counsel believed other parts of the Columbia deal were good for consumers.

“…the monthly consumer charges (were) part of an overall settlement package where the package as a whole provided significant benefits to consumers,” he said.

As they work against Dominion’s proposal, the consumer’s counsel and the other ratepayer watchdogs are arguing before a regulator that has regularly sided against them. It’s supposed to be protecting Ohio ratepayers from monopoly utilities, but there are serious questions about the PUCO’s willingness to do that. 

Its former chairman, Sam Randazzo, was indicted this month in connection with what was likely the largest bribery and money laundering scandal in Ohio history. He and another recent PUCO employee helped draft a corrupt $1.3 billion bailout bill that benefitted Akron-based First Energy, an electricity provider.

Randazzo received $4.3 million from FirstEnergy executives just before Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him PUCO chairman. And former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for using more than $61 million in FirstEnergy funds to shepherd the corrupt bailout through the legislature.

The PUCO also has been quick to grant rate increases that critics see as big giveaways that soak consumers.

For example, the regulator allowed FirstEnergy to collect $460 million under a rate increase called a “rider” that was later struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court. There’s no way to refund the money to consumers — even though auditors can’t figure out how the money was actually spent. They can’t even be certain that it didn’t go to fund the bribery and money-laundering scandal. 

The illegal rate hike is hardly the only one the regulator has granted.

Since 2009, the PUCO has allowed $1.5 billion in rate increases that were later ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. But because of the way the riders were written, there’s no mechanism to repay the ratepayers who were overcharged. PUCO officials have claimed that they can’t build refund mechanisms into riders, but many observers — including the consumers’ counsel — say that’s false.