Utility Corruption

The ultimate power play

Utility monopolies buy influence at your expense

A glance at utility dirty deeds nationwide

Cutting power, enriching executives

Utility companies disconnected U.S. households more than 5.7 million times since 2020.

At the same time:

From 2019 through 2021, the top dozen utilities spent $2.8 billion paying roughly 70 top executives — about $5.9 million per executive per year.
Entergy’s CEO has been compensated by more than $91 million and Dominion’s CEO made more than $86 million from 2017-2022.
The highest-paid utility CEO in 2022 was NextEra Energy, whose compensation totaled $40.4 million after retiring in July 2022.

FirstEnergy donated tens of millions to a former Ohio state House speaker who shepherded in $1.3 billion in taxpayer-funded bailouts for the firm’s nuclear plants.
Arizona Public Service spent $10.7 million in dark money donations to stack the regulatory board
Commonwealth Edison admitted bribing Illinois political figures in that state.
Dominion donated $15 million+ over the past decade to lawmakers in charge of regulating them while overcharging Virginians $234 million
In a 2022 runoff for the Louisiana Public Service Commission, the incumbent received nearly 75% of campaign funding from regulated industries.
An audit found Potomac Edison owes nearly $1.7 million in refunds to Maryland customers it wrongly charged for bribes, lobbying, corporate sponsorships, advertising and other expenses.

In total, U.S. power companies made $215 million in political donations to dark money groups but only publicly disclosed about half of that.

YOUR DOLLARS, THEIR POLITICAL DONATIONS: LEGALIZED CORRUPTION

More than 70 investor-owned utility holding companies and their subsidiaries contributed more than $215 million in political donations to dark money groups but publicly disclosed about half of that. Of this total, $70 million alone went to political party organizations from 2008 through 2022.

Corporate Profit Rules

Dominion earns excessive profits of roughly $350 million to $425 million that normally would need to be returned to ratepayers but the firm lobbied successfully for a law to freeze that requirement.
In 2019, Entergy lobbied New Orleans City Council to pass a resolution that could cost ratepayers at least an extra $900 million for depreciated costs to keep two power plants operating.
In 2020, Entergy threatened “lengthy and costly litigation” when New Orleans City Council considered reducing its guaranteed profit margin from 11% to 9.35%.

Utilities like Entergy block policies and regulations to advance renewables and clean energy technologies and the transmission infrastructure needed to support them.
Louisiana ranks 50th in the U.S. for producing electricity from wind, solar and energy storage
Dominion is ranked nearly dead last nationwide in energy efficiency.
More than 8,100 energy projects — mostly wind, solar and batteries — were waiting for permission to connect to electric grids at the end of 2021.
Duke Energy opposed a state bill that would have let anyone install solar panels and sell electricity directly to consumers.
Developers say utilities are the biggest obstacle to implementing community solar projects.