AEP said the credit could reach as much as $1 a month by January. "The mechanism is set up as a financial hedge. So there will be periods, and there have been periods, there will be a cost to customers, but it's that hedge and that protection to customers in the event you have what's happening right now when you have spikes in natural gas and power prices, that OVEC is returning money to customers," said Reitter. HB6 is at the center of Ohio's largest corruption scandal. Federal investigators have accused former House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican, and others, of running a bribery scheme through a dark money group largely funded by FirstEnergy. FirstEnergy has admitted to bribing Householder and former PUCO chair Sam Randazzo in exchange for preferential regulatory treatment and the passage of legislative goals, such as the nuclear power plant bailout found in HB6. Householder and co-defendant Matt Borges, former Ohio Republican Party chair and FirstEnergy lobbyist, have pleaded not guilty.