COLUMBUS, Oh. (WCMH) –The cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, joined forces to prevent residents from being billed tens of millions of dollars in electricity fees.
Zach Klein, Columbus City Attorney, filed with Cincinnati attorneys a preliminary injunction against the State of Ohio, and electric companies, seeking to stop fees authorized by House Bill 6.
Klein says it will allow Columbus residents to keep $25 million in their pockets, instead of putting that onto electrical bills.
“Ratepayers should not be subject to the mandates of a law borne of corruption for the benefit of a select few,” Klein said in a press release about the filing.
“We fully expect HB 6 to be repealed by the courts based on it being unconstitutional, but this preliminary injunction is necessary to protect ratepayers while the legal process ensues,” Klein said in the release.
Once a fee is collected, it can’t be refunded to a ratepayer under Ohio law, Klein explained. “If the cities’ motion is successful, that will result in no extra fees added to electrical consumers’ bills starting on January 1, 2021, as originally required in HB 6.”
Columbus and Cincinnati joined on October 26, 2020 in a lawsuit to strike HB 6 as unconstitutional. Klein says the move was to protect Ohioans from “…nearly a billion dollars of new fees that will be collected through their utility bills over the next six years.”
A spokesperson from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio said that they could not comment on pending court proceedings.