Electricity rate caps expire at the end of this year for Ohio. Legislators are flailing around trying to do something, or trying to appear to do something. They were up past midnight this morning talking about incorporating "favorable" rates into law and prohibiting or taxing "excessive earnings." From the Columbus Dispatch:

Republican legislative leaders worked into the wee hours this morning attempting to forge a new regulation plan for electricity that satisfies those who want to see competitive markets develop, while easing concerns of Gov. Ted Strickland and others that major rate increases will result.

The final marathon of negotiations followed a veto threat by Strickland, who said Friday that "the bill does not protect consumers against unwarranted and unjust rate increases."...

House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, has argued that customers will pay the most favorable rate, whether it's regulated by the state or set through a transition into an open, competitive market.

But Rinebolt told a House committee yesterday that the bill's definition of "favorable" was an "ill-defined standard for pricing."...

The governor on Monday evening proposed adding a new provision to the bill covering "excessive earnings," defined as a rate that "significantly exceeds the returns achieved by businesses in the private sector with comparable risk."

"We want a clear and common-sense rate system that doesn't allow utilities to run away with excessive revenue and earnings," Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said.

But Republicans balked at the proposal, calling it a tough-to-define standard that does nothing to promote efficiency among utilities and could lead to purposeful higher spending....

"I don't want to push something that's going to raid retirement accounts, fatten CEO salaries and promote waste," he said of the governor's proposal. "We're trying to come up with something that's a fair test that promotes efficiency."