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Brent Woodall
Op-ed by Brent Woodall
It’s time to say what too many of us have already known for some time – Alabama’s electricity rates are too high. That is not acceptable.
President Trump is working hard at reversing the effects of the high inflation our nation has experienced over the last four years, and it is showing throughout our economy. Even with his efforts, however, many people in Alabama are still struggling to pay their electric bills.
Alabama Sen. Katie Britt recently said that Alabama having the highest electricity rates in the southeast is unacceptable. She is right!
WBRC in Birmingham also recently reported that Alabama’s electricity bills are the third highest in the nation, behind Hawaii and Connecticut. Why is that? Sure it gets hot here but, let’s face it, it also gets hot in Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, and all of those states have lower electricity rates than Alabama has.
The Alabama Public Service Commission has been given the responsibility of regulating utility rates of those companies that are monopolies in our state. The largest of those companies provides electricity for a significant portion of Alabama. That company, like the other companies regulated by the Public Service Commission, has to pay the PSC for the privilege of being regulated.
According to the PSC’s annual report, its mission is, “To provide a balance between regulated companies and consumers in order to provide consumers with safe, adequate and reliable services at affordable rates.”
Based on Sen. Britt’s statement and WBRC’s report, the PSC commissioners have failed to achieve their mission. It’s long past time for those commissioners to become familiar with their mission statement and start providing a true balance, one that no longer hurts consumers.
For starters, the commissioners should listen to the ratepayers and not just the utility companies. It might surprise you to learn that, when considering rate increases, the PSC doesn’t hold hearings in which the public and experts can participate. They haven’t since 1982. Why don’t they want to listen to the people who are most affected by their votes?
It might also surprise you to learn that the PSC doesn’t spend all the money it receives from the utility companies it regulates. The PSC gets no money from the general fund. As I mentioned above, it gets all its money to operate from the utilities it regulates who pay for the privilege of being regulated.
Guess what the PSC does with the money they collect but don’t need? “Send it back to the ratepayers who paid it!” you might be thinking. That’s what should happen with the money, but that’s not what the PSC does.
No, they send it over to the general fund, from which the PSC did not receive any money. That money then gets spent on projects the ratepayers may never enjoy and in parts of Alabama they may never visit.
And it’s not just a few hundred or a few thousand dollars they collect from the ratepayers and then send to the general fund. From 2021 to 2024, the PSC sent $33 million to the general fund. As a conservative, I say that is wrong, and it should stop!
This is a hidden tax on the utility bills of those Alabamians who get their utilities from the companies that are regulated by the PSC.
We need to end the hidden tax on utilities in Alabama. We need to elect Public Service commissioners who are not afraid to listen to the ratepayers who are most effected by the rates the PSC approves. We need new people at the Alabama Public Service Commission!
Brent Woodall is an attorney who lives in North Alabama with Marie, his wife of 36 years, and their children, Hannah and Daniel. During his legal career, Brent has served as an assistant attorney general, an assistant U.S. attorney, and for more than three years as the chief of staff for a commissioner at the Alabama Public Service Commission. He is a candidate for Public Service Commission Place 2.
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