American electricity consumers face a potentially grave situation: major system restructuring is currently being debated at the state and federal levels, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and some members of Congress proposing extensive changes that would restructure how electricity is dispatched and transmitted across the country.

 

The alliance is a coalition of more than 50 state utility regulators and other public officials from 18 states advocating on behalf of America’s electricity ratepayers. Thanks for learning about our concerns and helping to defend the American public.

 

 

Statement of Principles and Positions

 

Electricity is an essential service that is critically important to the citizens and businesses in our regions. As state and local government leaders, our responsibility is to ensure access for consumers to electricity service that is reliable, safe, and consistent with environmental values, and that is stably and reasonably priced.

 

We support protecting customers from the risks of new experiments in untested and complex electricity market structures that are centrally designed and uniformly imposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) without regard to distinctive state and regional policies and circumstances.

 

We oppose new regulations and centrally planned market designs that usurp the ability of states and regions to pursue their chosen electricity policies by transferring many aspects of each state’s planning and ratemaking authority to the FERC.

 

We support policies and regulations that allow states and regions to rely on the FERC to ensure just and reasonable prices for wholesale power and wholesale transmission in a manner that complements state and local retail policies.

 

To maintain our goal of protecting consumers:

 

We are against any legislative provision that expands the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to interfere with the ability of states and municipalities to protect consumers and to preserve their chosen electricity service policies. Congress should strip from the comprehensive Energy Bill any electricity title that so expands FERC authority.

 

We urge FERC to abandon its proposed regulations for a nationwide standard market design. Any new regulations affecting market design should accommodate existing state policies and regional circumstances and differences.

 

Signed by The Alliance 

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