By Brooke Ward, Food & Water Watch
Were you ever scolded for forgetting to turn the lights off after leaving a room? It may have seemed trivial as a child, but now as bill-paying adults most of us understand where our parents were coming from: Electricity is expensive!
For Florida residents, the issue goes beyond the standard creeping utility bills. Most Florida investor-owned utility customers have seen double-digit energy bill increases in the past few years — and we have Gov. Ron DeSantis to thank.
Rate hike opposition is reaching a fever pitch. Today in Fort Myers and Miami Gardens are the first of DeSantis’ Public Service Commission (PSC) public hearings regarding Florida Power & Light’s latest egregious near-$10 billion rate hike request — the largest ever in U.S. history, coming just four years after FPL raised rates by a whopping $5 billion. If their latest request is approved, FPL customer bills could increase 22% over the next two years, amounting to an additional $360 annually.
This week, Food & Water Watch and our allies are rallying to tell Gov. DeSantis: Enough is enough. A full list of scheduled public hearings on this rate case is available at bit.ly/floridapsc.
Gov. DeSantis’ PSC has become a rubber stamp for corporate utility handouts. Emboldened by a favorable regulatory environment, utility corporations continue requesting jaw-dropping rate hikes, often without adequate justification. These requests have yet to be turned down. Communities and our environment lose out.
Every year, Florida families are paying several hundred dollars more than they were just five years ago. From 2020 to 2024, Tampa Electric Company customer bills increased 56%; 42% for Duke Electricity; 36% for FPL; and 29% for Florida public utility companies.
DeSantis and corporate utility lobbyists know rate hikes are unpopular, and that’s why they are trying their hardest to push them through with as little chance for opposition as possible. Despite the wide-reaching implications of FPL’s huge rate hike request, the PSC plans to hold a mere seven in-district meetings in May and June. That’s approximately one mid-week, mid-day meeting for every 1.7 million FPL-serviced residents.
Public opposition must be heard. Since FPL’s February rate hike filing, nonprofits have filed a motion urging the PSC to hold additional hearings, hundreds of people and elected officials from Manatee County have called for more in-district hearings.
Another failure of DeSantis and his PSC is the staunch attachment to fossil fuels. Floridians know the truth: We need clean, affordable energy now.
Natural gas makes up 72% of Florida’s energy mix. Despite being the Sunshine State, our utilities have no plans to shift to majority renewable energy in coming years. Fracked gas has a number of devastating health and environmental impacts, including exacerbating costly storms and extreme weather events.
This is all while Florida is set to experience the worst impacts of climate change in the United States. Instead of encouraging a green energy transition, rubber-stamped rate hikes allow utility companies to use our dollars to pollute our home and then require that we pay for any damages. We pay twice — for the damage their pollution causes and for the rising bills that supercharge it.
Our elected officials need to reform the PSC back to its original purpose: protecting everyday Floridians from price-gouging utility corporations. Families are struggling under the burden of growing bills.
If this government and its regulatory bodies care for the people they preside over, they must do more to protect our hard-earned dollars and our climate. The PSC must listen to the people and reject FPL’s request and any future requests from Florida utilities.
Brooke Ward is the senior Florida organizer with the national environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch, mobilizing people to build solutions to pressing food, water and climate problems of our time. She is based in the Tampa Bay area. Banner photo: Electric transmission towers (iStock image).
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