From Business First Columbus:

American Electric Power Company Inc. wants to boost its electric rates by about 15 percent annually for the next three years to keep pace with rising fuel prices and infrastructure costs to operate its system.

The Columbus-based utility filed the rate hike request Thursday morning with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. It is AEP’s first rate filing under the new energy law passed by the Ohio General Assembly in April and signed into law by Gov. Ted Strickland on May 1.

AEP said its rate increase is needed in part because of the rising cost of coal, the primary fuel for its power plants. Coal costs have doubled in the past year, AEP-Ohio President Joe Hamrock said in the release.

The increase would raise the monthly bill for an average AEP customer in Central Ohio by approximately $16 in 2009, according to an AEP release. The company provides power to 1.5 million customers in Ohio and West Virginia’s northern panhandle.

AEP expects the rate hike request to draw “frustration, anger and criticism” given the tough economic times Ohioans are facing, said AEP Chairman and CEO Michael Morris in a news release. That includes spikes in health-care expenses, food prices and fuel costs.

“Fortunately, by using all the tools provided by the governor and legislature,” he said, “we were able to design a new energy plan that will allow us to continue to provide reliable, affordable and cleaner electricity in Ohio while at the same time allowing us to devise a critical economic development plan that will help turn around Ohio.”

When the electricity bill passed into law, Ted Strickland claimed that it was the most important piece of legislation passed during his time in office. And what do we have to show for it? Higher electricity bills for AEP customers.

In Ohio, we may never know what rates might be if true deregulation might have accomplished in Ohio. AEP allowed the electric companies to keep their monopolies, which kept the unions happy because they could charge excessive rates. And it kept Ohio’s major manufactures happy because under the current monopolistic system, they get discounted rates that Ohio’s small businesses will never enjoy.

The energy bill was passed with strong support from both parties, including the leadership in Ohio’s House and Senate. They took the easy way out, claimed the complex problem of electricity was taken care of. And after all of that, your electric bills will now skyrocket because now the only defense against such increases is bunch of toothless PUCO bureaucrats appointed by Gov. Strickland.