Virginia – Power for Tomorrow (PFT), a coalition of energy, labor, consumer, business and energy policy experts, is sending mailers to Virginians alerting them about Clean Virginia, a well-funded group that is running a political campaign to support Virginia lawmakers who back deregulation of the state’s electricity system, which would lead to higher electric bills and less reliable energy.
“We’re educating voters on what Clean Virginia is trying to accomplish: higher power bills for families and aggressive salespeople targeting less sophisticated customers,” said Gary Meltz, the Executive Director of Power for Tomorrow.
A “regulated” electricity market (like the one that currently exists in Virginia) means that electric companies produce and deliver electricity to customers. These electric companies are highly regulated by state government experts who control the supply of electricity and how much the power companies can charge their customers.
Deregulating Virginia’s market would allow third-party suppliers to sell electricity to customers; a third-party supplier is a company that buys power from electric generators, marks it up, and sells it to customers. In deregulated states, people who sign up to buy electricity from third-party suppliers are paying significantly higher electric bills then they would have if they just stuck with the local power company.
For example, a Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration data reported that U.S. consumers who signed up with third-party suppliers “paid $19.2 billion more than they would have if they’d stuck with incumbent utilities from 2010 through 2019.” The Journal added that in nearly every state where third-party suppliers operate: “they have charged more than their incumbent utilities in each of the five years from 2015 through 2019.”
In neighboring Maryland, deregulation led to Marylanders paying hundreds of millions more for electricity, not less. A recent op-ed by the director of advocacy of AARP Maryland stated: “Door-to-door agents go to low-income neighborhoods, especially in Baltimore City, promising lower prices but eventually delivering higher ones. They have stood outside Baltimore’s social services offices to sign up people.” The author attributes Maryland’s 1999 decision to deregulate as the root cause of this scam.
About Power for Tomorrow
Power for Tomorrow is a nonpartisan organization with a mission to protect consumer interests by advancing the cause of sensible regulation of electric utilities. PFT joins the national conversation on how to protect consumers, ensure reliability and advance the development of clean energy. To learn more, visit www.powerfortomorrow.org.