Transcript:
People who care about climate change may be missing an opportunity to influence state and local energy policies.
Every state has a public utility commission, made up of a small number of people who are either appointed by the state government or elected by voters.
These groups are often responsible for setting the price of electricity, permitting new power plants, planning for renewable energy, and making decisions about the future of the grid.
But few consumers know who these commissioners are or what they do.
Hua: “I kept on coming back to this question, how are these bodies so important, yet even within the energy space, even within the climate space, a lot of people hadn’t really heard of them or weren’t thinking about them?”
Charles Hua is the founder of the nonprofit PowerLines.
His group encourages people to look up who sits on their state’s public utility commission, find groups who are engaging with them, and make their voices heard.
Hua: “I think it’s incumbent on all of us to have some level of awareness of these decision-makers so that we can make sure that they’re ultimately held accountable to the public interest and making sure that they are doing everything they can to advance a more affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy system for us all.”
Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
