![]() ![]() ![]() And we know that rooftop solar and investments in energy efficiency and other distributed resource help lower peak energy demand and lower maintenance and upgrade costs and lead to a more efficient, localized energy system, which costs less and keeps more money in everybody’s pockets. I would start by saying Solar United Neighbors, I think the biggest thing that we see is that electric investor owned utilities are really taking advantage of their monopoly power to squash the semi minimal competition from like rooftop solar and other distributed energy resources. There’s definitely a lot we could say on this. I’d love to start this off by asking a little bit about, you know, why should we care about this petition? What is at stake? And I tried to cover that a little bit in the introduction, but why don’t I talk toss this to you first, Liz, and I’m just kind of curious, can you give some examples of what are the issues at stake with utility companies about their behavior, about how we pay our utility bills that makes this petition so important? ![]() Howard and Liz, welcome to Local Energy Rules. I’m John Farrell, Director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is Local Energy Rules, a biweekly podcast sharing powerful stories about local, renewable energy. Howard Crystal, Legal Director of the Energy Justice Program at the Center for Biological Diversity and Liz Veazey, Policy and Rural Energy Director at Solar United Neighbors joined me in June, 2022 to explain why the level of utility abuse requires a federal investigation and what potential remedies could come from the Federal Trade Commission’s scrutiny. Just a few weeks ago, a quartet of organizations, including the Institute for Local Self-Reliance submitted a petition to the commission asking them to once again use their investigatory powers to look into utility abuses. Their findings of rampant anti-competitive and fraudulent behavior led to federal legislation to reign in the utilities. Nearly 100 years ago, the Federal Trade Commission performed a multi-year investigation of monopoly investor utility companies. But now what we’re seeing around the country, and our petition highlights, a whole host of examples is utility companies abusing their monopoly power to continue to control the power system Then it was contemplated that they wouldn’t be allowed to put up insulation that might also reduce their reliance on the centralized power system. And you’re right in saying that when the system was set up, it was not contemplated that customers in their homes wouldn’t be allowed to provide their own electricity anymore. The basic problem is that our monopoly utility system has these private companies that don’t make money off of the rooftop solar that you generate in your home. ![]()
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