New Bill Would Block Utilities From Lobbying at Customers’ Expense

Watchdogs say utilities deserve greater scrutiny. Itai Vardi, research and communications manager at the utility watchdog group the Energy and Policy Institute, called Solages’s bill an important step.

“As captive consumers, ratepayers shouldn’t fund political machines — certainly not lobbying efforts that go against ratepayers’ interests,” he said.

Utilities are unique in that they are generally private, for-profit companies but are granted a legal monopoly to serve electricity, gas, or water in a given area. If someone moves into that area, they have little choice over who to buy their power from. In exchange for this monopoly, investor-owned utilities get an entire branch of state government — known as a public utility commission — devoted to regulating them.

Many states, including New York, already restrict utilities from using customer funds to lobby. New York public service law bars electric or gas companies from using ratepayer funds for “legislative lobbying,” and that prohibition was expanded in 2021 to include dues for trade associations. But critics say the law still contains loopholes: It doesn’t include lobbying on regulations by state agencies, for example, and there’s some ambiguity as to whether it covers “grassroots” lobbying like the robocall campaign.

“In our experience, if you don’t close the loopholes, then the utilities will exploit them,” Vardi said.

Solages’s bill explicitly bars grassroots lobbying and — like those passed in Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine — would require major utilities to submit annual reports to regulators on their political spending. It does not address lobbying around state regulations. Nor does it create any new penalties for companies that break the law, but Solages said state law already has provisions in place to fine utilities found guilty of wrongdoing.

New York Focus reached out to six of New York’s major electric and gas utilities for comment on the legislation, but they did not immediately respond.

The prospects of Solages’s bill remain uncertain. It does not yet have any cosponsors in the Assembly, and she said she is still seeking a lead sponsor to introduce a matching bill in the Senate.

“It’s in the infancy stages,” she said. But, given how the building electrification fight unfolded this spring, “I’m sure people are going to galvanize around this.”