Affordability Reckoning: CUB Seeks Strong Solutions for Savings
MADISON — CUB, the nonpartisan consumer advocate for Wisconsin utility customers today called for all candidates for office to embrace its nonpartisan four-point agenda to help tackle the affordability challenge that voters are so concerned about in 2026.
The Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, the sole voice working for small business and residential customers across the state, seeks to amp up planning, rein in profits, and stop utilities from profiting on piles of rubble as part of its platform to tackle affordability.
CUB has shared its proposals with the gubernatorial campaigns and with legislative candidates who have reached out to CUB.
“We are in the midst of a statewide and national awakening to the challenges with energy affordability,” said Tom Content, CUB executive director. “These concerns are heightened based on the public’s concerns about data centers and how much energy they use — and CUB’s focus on holding Big Tech to its commitment to pay its way for data centers’ energy needs.
CUB’s top recommendations for fixes start with giving the Public Service Commission the tools to adequately evaluate multi-year plans for utilities’ energy needs, including power plants and transmission lines. The state is required to ensure projects are in the public interest. Having this review in one comprehensive analysis would be more efficient and balanced than the piecemeal, siloed approach Wisconsin has in place today.
Most states require utilities to submit plans for state review that help the regulators overseeing the utilities to balance the utilities’ built-in profit incentive to overbuild the system with the need to ensure utilities do everything in their power to evaluate cost-saving options like energy efficiency, demand response, virtual power plants and the like. A strong planning process should be paired with requirements for competitive procurement for power plants and transmission lines, according to CUB.
“Without a robust planning process, we don’t have balance and we’re left with higher bills. Instead of submitting plans to the monopoly regulator, utilities present their spending plans to investors eager for the higher profits that come from their build-build-build agenda,” Content said. “It’s long overdue that we give the state the tools it lacks. Until we do, the PSC is trying to guide the state down the ‘energy future highway without a GPS, or even a map.” Beyond better planning, CUB seeks the other solutions for savings:
- Tie utility profits to affordability. The PSC has discretion in how it sets the profits every year for utilities, and changes in state law to empower the PSC to put affordability first are long overdue.
- End profits on dead power plants. Wisconsinites are paying $1 billion for dead power plants. And utilities are earning a nearly 10% return, not on power plants keeping the lights on, but on piles of rubble left after a plant shuts down.
- Ensure adequate funding for the PSC to regulate utilities and adequate representation for customers in PSC proceedings. With tech companies and their huge energy needs now part of the economy, the PSC and consumer advocate wll both need more resources to ensure the public interest is being met. Even before data centers, going up against utilities has always been a David v. Goliath proposition. As an example, in a typical case at the PSC, a utility will have 12-15 expert witnesses. At the Legislature, utilities have at least 25-50 times the lobbying capacity of CUB.
These four changes would go a long way toward restoring balance in utility regulation, in CUB’s view. A nonprofit organization with five employees, CUB works to advocate for the public interest, tackle affordability and high energy burden, and verify that Big Tech pays its way for data centers’ massive energy needs.
“There’s a huge imbalance between supply and demand when the PSC reviews what utilities propose, and there’s a huge imbalance between the utility shareholders who have prospered and the customers paying bills rising faster than inflation,” Content said. “In this affordability moment. candidates should embrace strong solutions for savings.”
CUB will explore challenges and solutions when it convenes the Consumers Forum on Energy Affordability on Nov. 17 at the Best Western Premier Park Hotel. Find out more and register to attend here.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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