The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) has asked the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to dismiss a Dominion East Ohio (DEO) application for an increase in gas distribution rates because the utility has failed to publish complete public notices of its application, which has since been consolidated with a infrastructure replacement program, the OCC said.

The OCC says Dominion East Ohio’s rate case proceeding has been transformed from a “straightforward traditional request” to a “more complex proceeding that now contemplates potential future rate increases for a $2.6 billion Pipeline Infrastructure Replacement [PIR] program. In the rush to making this transformation, the company and the commission have not provided DEO customers with the notice specifically required…”

The OCC wants the rate case dismissed or, in the alternative, wants the PUCO to dismiss the PIR application from the rate case. DEO filed its PIR application in February (see Daily GPI, Feb. 27). Over a 25-year span, DEO hopes to replace nearly 20% of the company’s 21,000-mile pipeline system.

DEO filed its base rate increase application one year ago (see Daily GPI, July 23, 2007). Last month the OCC said DEO has failed to prove its need for a base rate hike and its request should be rejected (see Daily GPI, June 24).

“It must go without saying that customers could use — and would, in fact, expect — information regarding a future $2.6 billion program that will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue requirements in future cases to customers as part of the substance of the application,” OCC said in its Monday filing with the PUCO.

“The potential magnitude of the Pipeline Infrastructure Replacement application eclipsed the already significant base rate increase requested in the Aug. 30, 2007 rate case application. The $2.6 billion in Pipeline Infrastructure Replacement costs is equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue requirements over the next 25 years.”

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