PUCO staff’s attorney wants requested changes to SOBE rate hike dropped

An attorney for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio’s staff argued that requests for an end date for the major emergency rate hikes approved by the commission for SOBE Thermal Energy Systems LLC and the inclusion of language that the increases are “subject to refund” aren’t valid. The two requests made by the city of Youngstown and the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel in a Sept. 14 joint filing should be rejected by the PUCO “because they are outside the scope of the commission’s rehearing entry,” wrote Julian Johnson, an Ohio assistant attorney general