Are you reading @davidpomerantz.bsky.social 's substack or do you not know what is going on at all? utilitywatch.substack.com

Thanks Bill!

Really excellent analysis of the latest chapter in the political and regulatory fight to rein in Alabama Power, a key part of Southern Company’s wealth extraction model. Anger about rates is growing everywhere. How much will reform achieve and how much will it be co-opted?

Thanks Kevin!

The Alabama Utility Bill Uprising and What It Means Alabamians are trying to finally bring accountability to their monopoly utility after four decades.

Wrote a post summing up what I think is the most interesting state in the US for utility accountability right now: Alabama.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Doesn’t sound free.

Know what my mid-morning snack is gonna be out of solidarity w/ Artemis now.

Politics made Alabama power bills high. Politics can lower them. | Alabama Reflector The Alabama Legislature's attempt to protect state utilities from public outrage over high power bills has a notable weakness.

"The Alabama Legislature heard your complaints about your power bill.

They said: Shut up."

alabamareflector.com/2026/04/06/p...

We're hiring a public records counsel to join our amazing team at EPI. Come help us expose how monopoly utilities and fossil fuel companies are hurting people and help us build momentum for change. energyandpolicy.org/public-recor...

Are you an attorney who cares about climate change, environmental justice, democracy, and corruption? Come work with us at the Energy and Policy Institute! energyandpolicy.org/public-recor...

When utilities ask to raise rates, customers pay the legal fees. A bill in Mass. would change that Lawmakers are considering legislation that would prohibit utilities from passing on rate case expenses to their customers. Instead, the utility would foot the bill, taking the money out of its shareho...

When your utility asks state regulators to let them raise rates, they often hire expensive consultants and outside lawyers to help them make their case.

Then you, the ratepayer, foot the bill.
www.wbur.org/news/2026/04... @wbur.org #energysky

Power Bills Are Soaring. So Are Utility Profits. Americans Pay The Price. Investor-owned utilities pocketed $244 billion in profit off ratepayer bills between 2021-2024

"For most Americans, when they pay their electric bill every month, a big chunk of that bill – probably bigger than they think – is going to their utility’s corporate profits," @davidpomerantz.bsky.social told @silviomarcacci.bsky.social: thepowerline.substack.com/p/power-bill... 🔌💡

Went literally my whole life thinking I did not like black licorice and then just had some high-quality stuff. Shaken to my core.

Maybe an anhinga?

Welcome to Utility Watch: Let's Talk Utility Profits Politicians of both parties are honing in on utility profits in their plans to lower voters’ electric bills. That's smart. It’s good policy and good politics.

Read the piece, and [deep, existential groans] subscribe for more of these.
utilitywatch.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

It’s good politics to pair this stuff. Americans may not know the details of utility regulation, but they are broadly, instinctually correct in feeling that the corporate utilities serving them are ripping them off.

Want abundant energy? Ask who benefits from scarcity. Achieving energy abundance requires reforming electricity markets, refreshing electric utility regulation and rethinking the way we pay for grid infrastructure.

(A phenomenal piece I’d recommend on how these two frameworks are really quite complementary is from
@arjjacob.bsky.social): www.utilitydive.com/news/energy-...

Contrary to the “abundance” vs “balancing corporate control/profit/power” divide that is playing out here, actual politicians don’t seem to see any schism here. If you look at their policy platforms, they’re embracing both. (Govs. Sherrill and Shapiro provide great examples.)

Thankfully, right-sizing utility profits pairs beautifully with other ideas to make it easier to build clean energy and transmission, like public financing for those assets, permitting reform, growing state planning capacity and procurement, and increasing grid utilization.

American customers will not support desperately needed spending on the grid if they’re paying $.15 on every dollar in an unnecessary wealth transfer to utility CEOs and Wall Street.

In fairness, right-sizing utility profits won’t force them to build better stuff either. We need other parallel policy tracks to do that. But it will lower utility bills, and that’s really important for the clean energy transition.

Utilities have been using their abundant capital access to build the wrong stuff. Giving them more, absent other reforms, won’t make them suddenly build the right stuff.

Southeastern Utilities Block Transmission Necessary for Decarbonization Investor-owned utilities in the South have spent years undermining efforts to expand high-voltage transmission in an effort to entrench their monopolies.

We do need to make it easier to build clean energy and high-voltage transmission. But the problem hasn’t been that utilities don’t have access to capital! They’ve had plenty while not building enough of that stuff (and often blocking it!) energyandpolicy.org/southeastern...

Democrats need to think bigger on utilities We need more power, not just short-term rate cuts.

I also talked a bit about why I think the arguments that reducing utility profits will starve the clean energy transition of capital are wrong. Here's one version of that argument: www.slowboring.com/p/democrats-...

Rebalancing “Return on Equity” to Accelerate an Affordable Clean Energy Future - RMI By updating how to determine ROE, regulators can incentivize grid investments that are more affordable for customers, improve grid resilience, and maintain reliability.

But state regulators have been setting these margins way too high, as recent analyses have shown. Here’s one of several. rmi.org/rebalancing-...

Utilities, which enjoy government-sanctioned monopolies that insulate them from competition and risk, are supposed to earn enough profit to attract capital investment, but no more than that.

How Much Do Utilities Profit from Your Electric Bill? See how much of your monthly electric bill goes to your utility's profits. An interactive tool from the Energy and Policy Institute.

You can also see how much of your monthly bill goes to profits using EPI’s nifty new calculator here: energyandpolicy.org/utilityprofi...

As customers’ utility bills have been skyrocketing, investor-owned electric utilities’ profits have been going up too. Corporate electric utilities kept about 15% of the revenue they made in 2025 as profit, according to a new report we released last week. energyandpolicy.org/utility-prof...

Utility profit is indeed where plenty of the money is. That’s why, while climate advocates are somewhat new to this line of argument, state consumer advocates have been fighting to right-size utility profits for years. People should listen to them!

Going after utility profits is a great example of what I call the “Willie Sutton Rule” of utility rates. Asked why he robbed banks, the famous stick-up man responded: “Because that’s where the money is.”