Montgomery, AL – A proposal to change Alabama’s Public Service Commission to an appointed agency is a full-frontal assault on accountability in Alabama, and it has one obvious purpose: protect Alabama Power’s profits by taking voters out of the one place they still have leverage.
The Alabama Public Service Commission decides what families and businesses pay on their electric bills. The people who sit on the PSC approve rate increases, oversee utility practices, and decide what costs customers get stuck with. Under this bill, that power would be removed from the ballot box and handed to political insiders who take campaign contributions from Alabama Power.
Let’s call it what it is. This is a power grab by Alabama Power. It is an attempt to shut out the public and insulate monopoly utility regulation from the people who pay the bills.
“Alabama Power is so scared of voters that they are trying to take you out of the equation completely,” said Daniel Tait, Executive Director of Energy Alabama. “If the Alabama Power Grab passes, the public loses oversight and the utility gains insulation once and for all. That is the whole point.”
When Alabamians are already getting crushed by high electric bills, lawmakers should be strengthening oversight, increasing transparency, and putting consumers first. This bill does the opposite. It concentrates power, weakens accountability, and makes it easier for monopoly utilities to write the rules while customers pay the price.
And it gets worse. Alabama Power is prohibited from donating directly to PSC candidates. But there is no such prohibition for the Governor or the Legislature. Moving the PSC to an appointment system does not reduce politics. It moves regulation into the part of the political system where utility money has more room to run. The result? A pipeline for backroom influence, just how Alabama Power likes it.
“This is what regulatory capture looks like,” said John Dodd, Policy Manager at Energy Alabama. “The PSC should answer to the people who pay the bills, not to political dealmaking in Montgomery.”
Energy Alabama strongly opposes the Alabama Power Grab.
