OKLAHOMA CITY -- The verdict's in on a contentious $47.9 million electricity rate hike that pitted pugnacious Attorney General Drew Edmondson against a local utility owned by an industry giant.

But translation and interpretation of the 376-page recommendation will apparently take a few days.

Tulsa-based Public Service Co. of Oklahoma (PSO), a subsidiary of American Electric Power (AEP), applied to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) last November for an 8 percent rate rise.

That's about $6.50 per month for the average user of 1,000 KiloWatt Hours, according to a PSO press release of Nov. 27 last year. That corrected an erroneous earlier estimate of just $2.25, although not the total increase of $47.9 million.

PSO will invest about $2 billion through 2011 - $400 million per year - on transmission, generation and distribution to its Oklahoma customers, a company document states.

PSO, which serves 514,000 customers in Oklahoma's east and southwest, states that such projects could be threatened without the rate increase.

Edmondson didn't buy it. In a news release two months ago the attorney general announced that he opposed the rise and instead filed a request with the OCC to cut PSO's electricity rate by $22.8 million.

The attorney general, who represents taxpayer public utility cases, claims PSO has overestimated some financial expenses in its rate-rise case, the AP reports.

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) on Wednesday handed the OCC his ruling on the PSO request. Officials at both estimate that the lengthy ruling will take several days to digest and understand, an AP update said.

The AP update added that OCC staffers had recommended to the ALJ a compromise PSO rate decrease of $9.1 million.