“Veering from this original intent of regulation — driven by overreaching politics — risks regulators’ ability to achieve their core objective of protecting consumers…. Unfulfilling these core obligations constitutes what I and others consider regulatory failure that raises doubts on the social desirability of public utility regulation.”

“… subsidies — often the result of increased politicization — can be unfair to funding parties (namely, ratepayers), economically inefficient, and unfair to competing energy sources.  One common bizarre practice is for electric utilities to subsidize their customers to use less of their service via energy efficiency initiatives….”

Public utility regulation falls within the lexicon economic regulation with its main objective to protect consumers from  the monopoly power of a utility. The presumption is that public utilities provide essential services that require strong service obligations and price controls.…