The Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council, or NOPEC, warned this week that state lawmakers are about to hand utilities a bonanza of profits if they approve a proposal to "reform" state energy efficiency mandates.

Provisions buried in a 90-page bill sponsored by State. Sen. William Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, means "a utility could collect as much as $23 (in extra charges) for one compact fluorescent bulb over its life," NOPEC argues in a letter to Ohio Senate and House leaders.

"We oppose Senate Bill 58 in its current form and ask that you consider significant modifications to it, wrote NOPEC Executive Director Chuck Keiper, in the two-page letter.

The memo, also sent to Seitz, who has been conducting hearings on the bill, argues that provisions in the legislation "will allow utilities to make as much as a 50 percent profit" on efficiency programs that customers are already paying for through increases in delivery rates.

Seitz, chairman of the Senate Public Utilities Committee, is accepting amendments to his bill today and has scheduled a possible vote next Wednesday with the stated goal of having the bill go into law by the end of the year. There have been about half dozen hearings.

Keiper suggests in his letter that lawmakers instead take a long, hard look at what the bill would do to residential electric rates.

NOPEC is a regional council of governments composed of 134 Northeast Ohio communities. About 500,000 residents and small business in these communities rely on NOPEC to negotiate power prices on their behalf.

FirstEnergy Corp. has publicly supported SB 58, maintaining that the current law has interfered with normal business growth. A top executive recently told financial analysts that all of the state's utilities have quietly joined to support FirstEnergy's position.