Navigating the Challenges & Opportunities of Today’s Regulatory Landscape
State utility commissions today must make decisions that significantly impact customers, regulated companies, investors, and other stakeholders amidst daunting economic pressures, a myriad of electric sector challenges, and new federal climate legislation. While regulation seems more challenging than ever (especially with Commission and consumer advocate resource constraints), the challenges provide an opportunity for collaboration and leadership. By bringing together state commissions, consumer advocates, and electric companies for a series of dialogues, CCIF aims to identify the pressures, challenges, and risks associated with each respective role and to facilitate collaboration and leadership toward achieving positive regulatory outcomes.
Specifically, CCIF will engage participants in discussion that recognizes today’s compounding economic pressures (pandemic; inflation; labor and supply shortages; international conflicts; etc.) and other electric sector challenges (high natural gas prices; extreme weather; physical and cyber security threats; clean energy transition; reliability and resilience; pricing and affordability; new legislation; etc.) but with a focus on proposed tools and concrete solutions for addressing these challenges, such as:
- Enhancing the regulatory compact with added flexibility and modernization.
- Mitigating upward pressure on customer rates.
- Creating more robust customer education strategies.
- Working to ensure additional resources, staff, and training/education for state utility commissions, consumer advocates, and key state/community partners engaged in electric customer assistance.
- Capitalizing on opportunities under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and tax credits.
- Making a coordinated push for additional federal funding (LIHEAP, etc.) and other forms of customer assistance.