"I have also always felt that conservatives need to be on the lookout for industries that try to co-opt the free market movement, to take advantage of their customers, and do so under the guise of competition."
. . . "A pivotal Wall Street Journal story found that: “U.S. consumers who signed up with retail energy companies that emerged from deregulation paid $19.2 billion more than they would have if they’d stuck with incumbent utilities from 2010 through 2019…”
"The New York Times agreed, reporting: “California and the 34 other states that have deregulated all or parts of their electricity system tend to have higher rates than the rest of the country.”
"Why are deregulated states forcing customers to pay more for electricity? It turns out that the companies that compete with the utilities to sell power to customers are ripping people off.
"Consider a recent report from the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University, titled “How Deregulation Made Electricity More Expensive, Not Cheaper.” The leading cause of higher rates identified by the report is a group of middlemen called retail suppliers that promise to help customers secure lower-priced electricity. They do this by taking customers off of the regulated rate charged by the incumbent utility – known as standard offer service – and transferring them to a system of competitive rates.
"But the problem is that while these retail suppliers might initially offer a rate lower than the standard offer service, the contracts allow them to auto-renew the agreements into variable-rate plans that consistently raise prices.
"Some might call this style of marketing by retail suppliers a “bait and switch” or a scam. Whatever you call it, it’s not a free market, and retail suppliers should stop pretending they care about utility competition. According to one watchdog, in 2024 alone, retail suppliers overcharged 11.4 million customers in the U.S., a whopping $4 billion more for electricity than what those customers would have paid if they had simply stuck with their incumbent utility.
"Now, even though President Donald J. Trump has eliminated many of Joe Biden’s programs that exacerbated inflation, millions of Americans are still struggling with affordability. With that in mind, I think it’s time that lawmakers and policy experts around the country come together and help the American people with lower electric bills by promoting sensible utility regulation that blocks retail suppliers from overcharging their customers." . . . More...
No comments:
Post a Comment