Advance Bold Public Power Campaigns to Reassert Public, Democratic Control Over Our Power System

Private, for-profit monopolies currently provide 70 percent of electricity in the United States. The other 30 percent is provided by publicly or mutually owned utilities. Over the past three years, investor-owned utility (IOU) residential electricity rates have increased 49 percent more than inflation, whereas the rates from publicly owned utilities have increased 44 percent less than inflation.1 Public power campaigns in Milwaukee,2 New York,3 Tucson, and other cities are demanding shifts to democratically controlled power systems to protect against rapidly rising electricity prices.4 Legislators can and should support local and national public power campaigns, using federal power to intervene where appropriate.

  1. Mark Ellis, Rate of Return Equals Cost of Capital: A Simple, Fair Formula to Stop Investor-Owned Utilities From Overcharging the Public, American Economic Liberties Project, page 2, January 2025, https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250102-aelp-ror-v5.pdf. ↩︎
  2. Power to the People Milwaukee, https://www.powertothepeoplemke.org. ↩︎
  3. Public Power NY, https://publicpowerny.org. ↩︎
  4. Derek Seidman, “As Electricity Bills Rise, Activists Are Demanding Public Control of Utilities,” Truthout, January 2, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/as-electricity-bills-rise-activists-are-demanding-public-control-of-utilities. ↩︎