© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Who Takes The Lead After The Freeze?

Mark Turnauckas, Creative Commons

Lawmakers in Richmond are deep in a discussion about lifting a freeze on utility rates that has customers overpaying electric companies. But lawmakers are divided over what happens next.

Regulators at the State Corporation Commission used to review the rates that customers paid to Dominion and Appalachian Power to make sure they weren’t overpaying. But that stopped in 2015. The idea was that major change was on the way because of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. But then that fell through.

Now lawmakers are lifting the rate freeze. Delegate Mark Keam of Fairfax County says he’s unhappy with the role regulators will play in the future. “Instead of coming back and saying 'We were wrong, let’s go back to the way we used to do business by having the SCC come back into the fold,' what they said was 'We are going to make about 10 or 12 different ways that we believe the General Assembly will substitute our judgment for what we believe is in the public interest.'”

Senator Frank Wagner of Virginia Beach says lawmakers should set the policy and regulators should follow rather than lead. “We thought we made it clear over the years that we want to see increased grid hardening, we want to see these investments in the grid, we want to see more solar," Wagner said. "And quite frankly on many occasions they just turned it down and basically said we’re just not going to approve those kinds of projects. So what do you do?”

What Senator Wagner wants to do is set up a system where lawmakers, not regulators, call the shots.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Michael Pope is an author and journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria.