MONTGOMERY, AL — The Alabama Senate today passed a substitute version of HB 475 that strips every meaningful consumer protection from the original bill and replaces them with provisions Alabama Power could not have written better on its own. Energy Alabama denounces this bill in the strongest possible terms.
This is not HB 475. It is SB 360 wearing a disguise.
Representative Mack Butler’s original HB 475, passed by the Alabama House with broad bipartisan support, would have required regular rate hearings, reduced Alabama Power’s profits, and banned utilities from billing customers for lobbying and political spending. Alabamians rallied around that bill. They called their legislators. They showed up. They made their voices heard.
The Senate’s answer was to gut it.
What passed today eliminates mandatory rate hearings. It removes profit limits. It creates a Governor-appointed Secretary of Energy who controls the Public Service Commission’s agenda, its staff, and the scope of any rate review — effectively handing a political appointee a veto over your electric bill.
Completely rewriting a bill and passing it through the entire Senate in less than 48 hours is not consumer protection. It’s Alabama Power protection.
The fight is not over. This bill now returns to the Alabama House, where members must decide whether to accept a version of HB 475 that betrays everything the original stood for — or to reject it and send a clear message that these members stand for Alabamians, not Alabama Power.
Energy Alabama is calling on every member of the Alabama House to vote no on the substitute HB 475. Vote no on the bill that protects utility profits and strips away the public’s voice.
The House passed the real HB 475. Now we’re asking them to defend it.
