Democratized energy and a healthy democracy go hand in hand. Unfortunately, both are at risk right now. Our voices and our bodies are sorely needed to help create change.

Overhauling our current system of regulating electric utilities is a good place to start. After food, water and shelter, we need electricity. And finally, after thousands of years of burning stuff to cook or stay warm or run our gadgets, we no longer have to do that. We have solar, wind, energy efficiency, geothermal and even humble window film. We just need to put these great solutions to work. As Bill McKibben says repeatedly, we just have to point a sheet of glass at the sun to generate electricity. 

So how does Edison Electric Institute (EEI) fit in here? As one of the most politically powerful trade groups in D.C., EEI influences national, state and even local electricity decisions. Why? Because nearly every investor owned electric utility in the U.S. is a member, and each member utility pays dues every year. EEI’s ~$100 million per year budget buys a lot of favors, ads, reports, expert witnesses, fancy dinners, boat rides, travel, and nice hotel rooms.

And who ultimately sends that $100 million per year to EEI? Why, it’s captive ratepayers like us, who else? 

However, we have solutions, so don’t despair! Four states – CO, CT, ME and MI – have outlawed utility political contributions, and eleven (AZ, CA, IL, MD, MN, NY, OH, PA, RI, UT, and VA) have introduced legislation. 

The Electric Utility Cabal: EEI, Utilities and Regulators

EEI often does the dirty work for utilities. Captive customers of Florida’s utilities were forced to pay for attacks on rooftop solar.  Utilities in sunny states have some of the most anti-solar policies in the U.S. An EEI gathering described the risks posed by net metering solar as well as climate activists. Why else would utilities in sunny states push fossil gas and kill solar electricity? Because utilities make more profit burning coal, they don’t pay the stunning damages from burning fossil fuels, and they are keen to kill competition from solar, wind and anything that reduces sales and profits. 

Utilities really only have one customer: the regulators.

All too often, the enablers of this bad behavior are the utility regulators. As one expert put it, utilities really only have one customer: the regulators. Utilities wine and dine the regulators and give them high-level jobs with fat paychecks after they’ve done their “public service.” The number of examples could fill a book. Perhaps that’s another reason utilities have been so under-the-radar.: utility regulation tends to be inherently boring.

The final irony is that we customers pay utility executives between $10 and $20 million per year to give us dirty energy we don’t want that is destroying our future. Utility PR departments tell us that coal is clean, coal ash is edible, climate change isn’t real, and that toxic pollution is not a problem. 

Too many regulators allow corporate cash to crush competition, shut out honest people who want to participate in decision-making or run for office, and buy politicians who then set utility-friendly policies.

It is often youth who feel thrown under the bus by these terrible decisions, and as they see it, the government is to blame. However, the real issue is our unfair rules and lack of oversight. Too many regulators allow corporate cash to crush competition, shut out honest people who want to participate in decision-making or run for office, and buy politicians who then set utility-friendly policies. And remember utilities have plenty of money, because it all comes from our electric bills. 

So what can we do?

• Get Trained! Listen in on recordings from the three-part PUC Leadership Training Series (LINK: Resources section of PUC landing page) in which we first walk you through the basics and then more advanced concepts and tools, so you can understand how this system works. Right now, Third Actors are affecting policies across the U.S., helping to bring about the transformation we need.
  • ABCs of PUCs
  • What’s Up, Docket?
  • Stand and Deliver: the Nuts and Bolts of PUC Intervention

• Sign up for your local Third Act Working Group. Across the country, local TA groups are organizing and taking action with support from allies, to engage with their state’s Public Utility Commission, to intervene and give comments in regulatory hearings, to hold utility companies accountable, and to take direct action to fight injustice in the system!

• Take Action Nationwide! We’re powerful when we work together. The Edison Electric Institute, the fossil fuel companies and for-profit utilities have a lot of money, but we have people power. As part of Power Up Communities!, we’ll ask you to help leverage key moments where we can harness political will to make change. Currently, that means write the Senate EPW Committee: Vet and Approve Board Members for the Tennessee Valley Authority Committed to Affordability and Climate Leadership!

Third Actors are speaking truth to (political) power – about (electrical) power! Considering only the last two months: volunteers in nearly a dozen states  gave testimony and submitted public comments inside these regulatory hearings, and when regulators don’t listen, you are engaging in nonviolent protest, taking action outside the halls of power too!

From Texas to Pennsylvania to North Carolina to New York to Vermont, Third Actors are making a difference. Let’s go!

My name is Nancy LaPlaca, and I’m excited to be part of Third Act’s Power Up! Communities project. I’ve been working in the obscure and complex world of public utilities commissions (PUCs) and the utilities they regulate for nearly two decades. I’ve served as congressional staff for two congresspersons, and policy advisor to an elected PUC commissioner in AZ from 2009-2013. I’ve worked on many issues, from so-called “clean” coal to fracked gas to pipelines, and great solutions like solar, wind and batteries, in many states.

Like all of us at Third Act, I’m dedicated to the concept of public service. We need democratized energy systems, with transparency and due process to make future-proof, equitable decisions about how we generate electricity – and that we must optimize outcomes for people, not corporate profits.

Why are utilities slowing down the clean energy transition? 

This is where we are:

Utilities are slowing and even stopping the growth of clean energy, while far too many regulators are captured by the industries they are supposed to watch over. Far too many regulators are lapdogs, not watchdogs, and the revolving door between the fossil fuel industry and the regulators who are supposed to serve us is all too real.

The reason is simple: utilities make more money when they build large, centralized fossil-fueled power plants and expensive long-range pipelines and transmission lines. While some new transmission lines are needed, utilities want to gold-plate transmission spending, slowing down or stopping the growth of people-powered, locally-owned and -produced clean energy. Full stop. 

Electric utilities are enormously powerful, selling nearly $500 billion worth of electricity annually. Adding to the problem, regulators allow utilities to use customer funds to promote fossil fuels, not the clean energy we want. 

Case Studies: Nevada and Arizona

Why else would utilities like Nevada’s NV Energy, owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, push new fossil gas (aka “natural” gas) power plants and pipelines in one of the sunniest, driest areas in the world, and one that’s at great risk of losing 90% of its water from the declining CO River? NV Energy’s 600 mile Greenlink project, whose cost just jumped from $2.5 to $2.9 billion, will be paid off over a stunning 70 years. NV Energy can collect money from customers before the line is built, and is guaranteed cost recovery even if the project is canceled. 

Nice work if you can get it.

The same thing is happening in Arizona, where regulators recently eliminated AZ’s already-low solar goal of only 15% by 2025? Massachussetts has reached nearly 25% solar, while sunny Arizona is a sad 10%. 

And oh yes: NV Energy and Southwest Gas are spending lots of money to grease the wheels for more fossil gas, despite the fact that surveys show that the vast majority of Nevadans and Arizonans want clean energy, not imported fossil gas. 

I lived and worked in energy, law and politics for 27 years in sunny Arizona, and can hardly believe the foolishness of investing billions of dollars in fossil gas power plants, pipelines, and compression stations that run 24/7/365 to keep the fossil gas flowing. 

Taking Action

So what are we going to do about this? We are going to act, because we are Third Actors. We are going to push back against these ill-advised policies because we want a livable planet for our kids and grandkids, and because no matter what the future brings, we will need electricity.

You are the backbone of this campaign to Power Up Communities! – through advocacy in public utility commissions and beyond, to other elements of the energy system. Third Actors include retired PUC staff, retired and practicing attorneys with deep experience in the regulatory world, economists, engineers, fighters for civil rights, grandmas and grandpas, just like me. 

In 1913, future US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote in Harper’s magazine that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” He was speaking about the power of transparency, calling upon businesses to “shed light on” their finances in duty to the public.

Brandeis was particularly concerned with the hidden fees and commissions collected by J. P. Morgan and other banks on publicly traded stock purchases. His phrase holds a double meaning for us here at Third Act. Sunlight really is the best disinfectant, for both cleaning up our politics and the energy that powers our lives.  

We’ll be continuing this series regularly, shining light on the hidden world of regulators, utility companies, nonprofits, and our communities. Together we will change the current fossil-fueled electricity system to one that serves people, not giant corporations and multi-millionaire utility executives.

In our next post, we’ll discuss what influences are stopping our progress on clean energy. Hint: powerful utility trade groups, utilities’ political and financial muscle, lack of transparency, and gaming the rules.

Here’s how you can contribute to Power Up Communities:

• Watch PUC Leadership Training #1: ABCs of PUCs! 
• Continue with PUC Leadership Training #2: What’s Up, Docket? Key Issues and Topics at PUCs on May 22, 2024
• Write a Letter to the Editor Using Our Online Tool: Clean Elections & Clean Energy!
• Get involved in a Third Act Working Group to Power Up Communities locally

Robert Wald shares his experience below.

Peace of Mind

I was in sixth grade the last time I had a fistfight. Our teacher, who believed students could learn better without actually being taught (this was the 1970s), stepped out of the classroom. Soon a classmate began poking kids with a pushpin, and when my turn arrived, I exploded in rage.

At one point, I had pinned my classmate against the teacher’s desk. I grabbed a pair of scissors and attempted to stab him. I missed, and the scissors embedded harmlessly in the desktop. Our teacher returned before much else happened, and I spent the rest of the morning in the principal’s office. 

I’ve avoided violent confrontations since then, and most people today view me as a laid-back person. Occasionally, though, I fantasize about throwing a brick through the window of a Bank of America or blowing up Exxon’s headquarters. You know, something for the good of humanity.  

So when Third Act offered training in nonviolent direct action, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to learn how to fight nonviolently against the carbon barons, who wage industrial-scale violence on us and the planet. 

The training took place in a large room on the ground floor of The Festival Center in Washington, D.C. Upon entering the room, I sat in one of the 50-odd chairs arranged in a circle. There were a few conversations among those Third Actors who knew each other, but the room was mostly quiet, the way rooms are when filled with strangers. 

Being a member of the Maryland working group, I knew a handful of people there. As the day progressed, however, I came to know many more of my Third Act brothers and sisters. And that’s exactly how I came to think of them over the course of the training. 

Some of the attendees had participated in nonviolent direct actions before, but others had never joined a movement, let alone risked arrest. They’re the ones I admired most, because they were just then embarking on a journey. 

Over the next one-and-a-half days, we learned and talked about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence and those of the War Resisters’ League. We also learned about the history and power of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. We learned how to plan and execute such actions, the right way to get arrested, and how to deescalate tense situations. The training also included a role-playing scenario based on Third Act’s nonviolent actions targeting dirty banks. 

I’d never gone to therapy or expressed inner thoughts and feelings in a group, but sharing my stories and hearing the stories of my fellow Third Actors turned out to be the most gratifying part of the training. It just may have been the most important, too, because it helped us get to know and trust one another. I know that if I am arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, there will be caring, deeply committed Third Act brothers and sisters by my side, backing me up. And I, of course, would do the same for them. 

After the training, I hung around and chatted with other Third Actors. My head and my heart were buzzing. I wanted more, as if I had just read a great novel that I never wanted to end.

Mary Ann Holtz of Florida brought the urgency home, quoting a previous newspaper article: 

“Of the 20 counties in the United States that will see the largest increase in the number of days when the heat index will reach or exceed 100 degrees, 18 are in Florida.” And ending with a plea: “In the Sunshine State we really can shift to renewable energy. Let’s insist on it!”

The effects of our climate action neglect were shown by Janet Kossing of Illinois, speaking to a need as basic as breathing: 

“…we’ve had the new experience of unbreathable air–in large part from wildfire smoke and the climate emergency upon us here and now. As a resident of Australia in 2019, I encountered even worse, including vacationing families driven into the ocean to escape the flames…”

This especially hits the hearts of Americans everywhere, who watched the Native Hawaiians in Lahaina, Kīhei and Upcountry Maui dive into the ocean to escape the flames.

In her letter, Kay Reibold spoke directly to the North Carolina Utilities Commission: 

“We need your advocacy, a vision for a clean energy future, and action, NOT rubber stamping of Duke Energy’s destructive proposals and facilitating regulatory permits that are promoting dirty industries in the state.”

Andy Hinz of Maryland pointedly asked if the Governor’s latest appointment to the Public Service Commission would push his fellow commissioners in a clean direction: 

“Will he allow them to waste money on hydrogen produced by burning fracked methane? Will he allow our broken Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS—the rules by which Maryland incentivizes the transition to clean energy) to remain broken by incentivizing dirty energies like burning trash, methane from factory farms, and wood harvested from our forests? Will he allow Exelon and others to keep expanding our obsolete fracked methane infrastructure rather than begin shutting it down now in a well-managed phase-out?”

And Pete Ness from Pennsylvania reminds us of one of the main reasons we are undertaking this PUC campaign: 

“…we as citizens must use another kind of “solar power” — shining sunlight on important agency decisions that can otherwise be obscure, mysterious and hidden behind closed doors.”

Indeed, Pete, the more folks who understand the power of the PUC’s, the more we will be able to influence their decision-making.

This Letter to the Editor Action is ongoing, alongside many other ways to get involved in PUC advocacy – especially through Third Act’s Working Groups.

An important but overlooked regulatory body exists that can address this problem: public utilities commissions, or PUCs. Each state has one—although some states’ go by other names, such as public service commissions. PUCs consist of anywhere from three to seven commissioners, whose terms typically last between four and six years. Most commissioners are appointed while some are elected.

PUCs play a critical role in utility regulation.

They have power to determine how much people pay for their energy bills, how much utilities invest in clean energy versus fossil fuels, where energy projects are sited, and how federal policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are implemented. 

Take the coal fleet in operation today. A recent study from Energy Innovation shows that 99% of U.S. coal plants are more expensive to run than if they were replaced by new solar, wind, or storage projects. In addition, building new gas plants is not only incompatible with our climate goals, but will also prove a costly mistake as these projects will need to be retired before the end of their useful life. Whenever PUCs continue to approve these increasingly uneconomic, climate unfriendly investments, they are slowing down the clean energy transition and costing consumers money.

Utilities are key to climate action.

Together, clean electricity and electrification of buildings, transportation, and parts of heavy industry can cut current carbon pollution by about 75 percent. Hence utilities, and by extension their regulators, are critical to making progress on climate change.

Very few people know about PUCs.  

Terms like PUCs or utility regulatory reform might induce yawns or blank stares. PUCs can seem obscure and boring, hidden from the public’s view. But this lack of salience and transparency is exactly what has enabled utilities to escape public scrutiny.

This has led to regulatory capture, where utilities influence their regulators and promote decisions in their self-interest at the expense of the public. Utilities have denied climate science and opposed distributed energy resources like rooftop solar. Bad actors in the sector have used ratepayer funds to bribe regulators and lobby for funding to bail out uneconomic coal and gas power plants. If there is one industry in the U.S. that should be held accountable through robust regulation, it is the monopoly electric utility industry.

Utilities have significant financial, political, and technological capital to move the needle on climate action. But insufficient regulation, combined with misaligned incentives, have made utilities barriers to an equitable clean energy transition. In fact, as Sierra Club’s The Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges illustrates, the vast majority of utilities receive a failing or near-failing grade based on their plans to retire coal plants this decade, stop building new gas plants, and build clean energy at the necessary pace.

If you want to learn more about these issues, you can read or listen to the book Short Circuiting Policy, which gives a background on PUCs and explains how utilities have slowed down the clean energy transition. 

PUCs and utilities can do better.

Activists have long been the driving force behind improving clean energy policy, passing laws like Clean Energy Standards (CES) at the state level. Working together, we can ensure that PUCs center climate and equity, allowing them to be enablers rather than barriers to clean energy and electrification.

• Use existing statutory authority. Through Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) processes, PUCs can require utilities to retire coal plants, build more clean energy, and prevent the building of new gas plants. PUCs can also adjust rates to make electrification more affordable, pursue innovative regulatory models including performance-based regulation, and bar utilities from using ratepayer money for political activities. To help this happen, advocates can testify in support of clean energy and environmental justice during PUC proceedings, and provide people power and communications resources to state and local groups engaged on PUC issues.
• Appoint and elect climate and equity leaders. Advocates can push for climate and environmental justice champions to be appointed and elected to PUCs.
• Pass model legislation. State legislatures can pass laws that explicitly require PUCs to consider climate and environmental justice impacts in their regulation, mandate utilities align their integrated resource plans (IRPs) with climate and clean energy goals, and establish programs that pay advocates to participate in PUC proceedings through intervenor compensation. Advocates can help make these laws a reality.

There are countless examples and case studies of success stories to build upon. Colorado recently passed legislation that bars utilities from using ratepayer money for political lobbying. Illinois established a consumer intervenor compensation fund to provide advocates with financial resources to participate in the state’s regulatory proceedings. Connecticut has proposed a bill that would require utilities to fund intervenor compensation and regulate utility executive compensation. And earlier this year, Louisiana elected Davante Lewis, a clean energy and equity champion, as a member of its Public Service Commission.

We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us to rapidly accelerate an equitable clean energy transition through utility regulatory reform. Let’s seize it. 

Charles Hua (Twitter: @charleschurros, LinkedIn: charles-hua) is a Policy Analyst at Rewiring America and a recent Harvard College graduate who has been recognized by the White House as a U.S. Presidential Scholar and by the Aspen Institute as a Future Climate Leader.

Leah C. Stokes (Twitter: @leahstokes; Instagram: @leahcstokes) is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara, Senior Policy Counsel at Rewiring America, and Co-Host of the podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”

Broadly, PUCs have significant authority to dictate standards, enforce rules, and establish new policies that jumpstart – or impede – clean energy, climate, and environmental justice priorities at a state level. PUCs touch nearly every key issue:

• Statewide Energy Plans and Targets

• Clean Energy 

• • incl. rooftop solar rules and minimum renewable standards

• Consumer Energy Pricing and Protection for low-income ratepayers

• Environmental Justice Policies 

• • incl. power plant and infrastructure siting, health and racial justice 

• Permitting for new power plants and infrastructure 

• • incl. transmission line and storage improvements and modernization – critical for renewable energy

• Oversight of existing power plants and infrastructure 

• • incl. nuclear safety, fracking regulations, and more

• Energy Efficiency and Conservation Standards
• Transparency, data access, and public participation in decision-making

Utilities

A small number of private investor-owned utilities (IOUs) serve electricity to about 72% of all US customers and directly account for about a third of total U.S. electricity generation and nearly 25% of all US greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Other utilities are either publicly-owned / municipal (“munis”), or cooperatives (coops). Beyond electricity, utilities supplying gas and other resources must also play a key role in creating a livable future.

Altogether, 200+ PUC commissioners are ruling on our country’s energy future. With clean and renewable electricity production on the rise, their role is expanding.

How Are PUCs Structured?

PUCs exist in every US state and territory, under varying names: state corporation commission, department of public utilities, etc. They are established under the state’s constitution or other legislation, and have (usually) three, five, or seven members, who may be elected (11 states) or appointed by the governor (the other 39 states).

Start here to learn more about your state’s PUC.

Some PUCs operate in good faith, but all too often, there is a revolving door between PUC commissioners and the industries they regulate. In many states, commissioners simply rubber-stamp utility wishlists with limited scrutiny, from behind a wall of secrecy and obscurity, with little meaningful input from environmental experts or the public.

PUCs have (usually quite small and overburdened) staff which must work across diverse areas requiring significant expertise, and are generally significantly outnumbered by the vast resources available to big-business IOUs. There may also be staff whose mandate is to protect the interests of the public.

Find out if an organization in your state represents the public interest.

How Do PUCs Operate?

• PUCs are quasi-judicial organizations, with meetings resembling courthouse proceedings.
• Cases before them are assigned docket numbers. Each docket specifies how various entities can influence the outcome, ranging from individual customers to “intervenors” – trade groups, environmental organizations, companies, social justice coalitions, etc. 
• The PUC may have an intervenor (or “expert witness”) hearing, where utility staff, intervenors, government staff and commissioners may cross examine each other.
• For the general public, the PUC might schedule public hearings, either in-person, virtually, or both, and will have avenues to submit comments in writing.
• Some cases are for long-range planning, referred to as Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs). States with a climate mandate may require a separate docket for the PUC to help shape the Climate or Carbon Plan.

Want to learn more? Check out this brief overview:

Canary Media, What are public utility commissions? A beginner’s guide

And for an even deeper dive, here are Third Act’s favorite links, videos and long-form articles to help you become a PUC Expert:

1. John Oliver: Last Week Tonight: Utilities 
2. David Pomerantz, Utility Dive: Getting Politics Out of Utility Bills
3. Leah Stokes @ Bioneers: The Future Is Electric
4. Chisholm Legacy Project: Who Holds the Power report
5. Wired: Everyone Wants to Build Green Energy Projects. What’s the Holdup? 
6. Rocky Mountain Institute: The Untapped Potential of Public Utility Commissions (3 part series)
   • Purpose: Aligning PUC Mandates with Clean Energy Goals
   • The People Element: Positioning PUCs for 21st-Century Success
   • Regulatory Process Design for Decarbonization, Equity, and Innovation
7. LATimes: The revolving door at public utilities commissions? It’s alive and well

About the Author:

Cathy Buckley (she/her)

Cathy is a consultant for Third Act (cathy@thirdact.org), working with Jeremy Friedman on Power Up Communities. As staff for the NC Alliance to Protect Our People and the Places We Live (APPPL), Cathy concentrates on clean energy and environmental justice matters at the NC Utilities Commission and in eastern NC.A Climate Reality Leader since 2013, she founded the Raleigh chapter in 2020. Cathy received a Bachelor and a Master of Science from MIT.