Oklahoma Gas & Electric Pushes Rate Hike Request

In addition, long-deferred capital needs of the nation's electric utilities are now estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars, according to Scott Hempling, executive director of the National Regulatory Research Institute, an independent, nonprofit corporation in Silver Spring, Md., which works to identify and meet regulatory challenges.

"Utility regulation has a 'consumer protection' component," Hempling says on NRRI's Web site. "Have we allowed this 'consumer protection' purpose to transmogrify, from protection against monopoly inefficiency to protection against high costs in general?

"Rate rankings do not equal rate appropriateness; consumer protection does not mean protection from the right rates."

In February, OG&E, a subsidiary of OGE Energy Corp., asked the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to increase average electric rates for its residential customers in the state by about $8 per month for an annual increase of about $110 million.

In support of its request, OG&E said it has spent about $1.6 billion in new power plants and improvements to power lines, substations and other equipment since the commission authorized a $42 million rate boost in 2006. But more than $900 million of that investment is not covered in current electric rates, which are based on 2004 costs.