The Energy Bills Are Too Damn High

Utility companies keep hiking rates. How long until there are political consequences?

By Paul Blest, More Perfect Union

Earlier this year, we reported on how investor-owned electric utility FirstEnergy is passing the consequences of their massive corruption scandal in Ohio — which has landed the former state House Speaker in federal prison — off on consumers in West Virginia in the form of rate hikes, with the help of political allies on the state Public Service Commission.

Well, they’re back at it again with more rate hikes. 

On Wednesday, FirstEnergy requested a rate increase totaling $502 million from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, which would affect nearly 2 million customers mostly in the western part of the state. The hike would apply to four different subsidiaries of FirstEnergy, and the average household would pay between $16 and $22 more for their electric bill every month. 

In its press release, FirstEnergy says the rate hikes are needed for technology upgrades and maintenance, as well as bill assistance for low-income customers. Its 746-page filing with the PUC tells a different story; the company warns that if the commission doesn’t approve its rate hikes, its "returns will continue to decline, deny [the company] the opportunity to earn a fair and reasonable rate of return, and risk undermining its ability to attract the capital needed to make the system investments necessary to support and ensure continued system reliability, safety, and customer service performance.” 

Declining returns? No! The humanity! 

In the same rate case, the Energy and Policy Institute pointed out, FirstEnergy proposed a $13.6 million refund to some customers in Pennsylvania as a result of the Ohio criminal investigation and the regulatory audits that followed. But this number is laughably low compared to the rate increases; affected ratepayers would receive at most a one-time $6 bill credit, compared with the hundreds more annually they’d be spending on their energy bill if the PUC approves the hike. 

Pennsylvanians will have the opportunity to make public comments on the hikes as the PUC considers them. It’s not just FirstEnergy, however—the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month that energy bills have increased an average of 3.6 percent over the past year, outpacing the rate of inflation. The high costs are particularly straining poor and working-class people, some of whom are now forced to decide between eating and keeping the lights on. 

In Oklahoma, where the Oklahoma Gas & Electric utility has raised rates every year since 2021 and is looking for a further $20 hike on residential consumers, there’s a backlash brewing, OK Energy Today reports. The AARP’s Oklahoma state director, Sean Voskuhl, told the outlet that his membership has been hit hard by the increases. 

“People are struggling and it seems like OG&E doesn’t care,” Voskuhl, a former Republican state legislator, told OK Energy Today. “It just seems like there’s a lack of awareness and maybe arrogance by OG&E of not understanding of what residential ratepayers are going through with rate increases.”

He added that there may be political ramifications, even in one of the country’s most conservative states.

“The number one thing we’re hearing about is higher utility costs and of this election, I think the pocketbook issues are front and foremost,” Voskuhl told OK Energy Today.

What’s happening in the states

• Voters in Kansas City overwhelmingly rejected a 40-year sales tax to help pay for a new Royals baseball stadium and upgrades to the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, another in a string of losses for billionaires who want the public to subsidize their teams. 

• Vermonters may have a chance to enshrine the right to organize and collectively bargain in the state constitution after the Senate unanimously passed a bill to do just that. If the House passes it next year, the question will go before voters in 2026. 

• Uber and Lyft have threatened to leave Minneapolis over a new minimum wage ordinance, so Republicans in the legislature filed a bill that would pre-empt the ordinance. Rideshare companies threatening to pick up their ball and go home when required to act like employers has been a key part of their playbook for years. 

• The Iowa Senate passed a bill to shield Bayer from lawsuits from people who used its Roundup weedkiller. More than 167,000 lawsuits have been filed across the country accusing the company of not informing consumers about the potential health hazards; this year, a Philadelphia jury awarded one plaintiff $2.25 billion.

• Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a ban on captive audience meetings, making his state the fifth in just the past few years to provide workers protection from being punished for not attending compulsory anti-union meetings. 

• Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill to restrict noncompete agreements to cases where an employee owns a stake in the company or knows trade secrets. The state previously banned some noncompete agreements in 2019.

• The Florida legislature has sent Gov. Ron DeSantis a bill that would gut the ability of local governments to require water and shade breaks for outdoor workers, as well as for government contractors to pay employees a living wage. (One Republican state senator said that heat and shade requirements are “babysitting” workers.) 

What we’re reading

• America is divided over efforts to rewrite child labor laws | Lauren Kaori Gurley, Washington Post

• Freedom Caucuses push for conservative state laws, but getting attention is their big success | Elaine S. Povich, Stateline

• New York’s Guardianship System Is Broken. Will Lawmakers Pay for a Modest Fix? | Jake Pearson, ProPublica 

• Working-class people rarely have a seat ‘at the legislative table’ in state capitols | Robbie Sequiera and Josh Kurtz | Stateline & Maryland Matters

• Welcome to a Brave New World of Price Gouging | David Moscrop, Jacobin