Monopoly utilities lobby for higher rates

Friday, April 14, 2017

I do not envy the duties of the Public Service Commission, the public regulatory body tasked with balancing the needs of consumers with the requests of Missouri utilities. It seems that every year, the state's largest investor-owned utilities keep proposing ever more elaborate ways to undermine the PSC's authority to keep electric rates at reasonable levels. When the PSC understandably refuses to give them carte blanche, the utilities then come to the legislature with a bill and promises of increased economic development if they could just have the ability to raise rates on their customers even more, and all too frequently the legislature actually entertains these ludicrous requests.

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