Writing my legislators about energy pricing brackets
Energy prices have significantly increased in my state for many consumers.
Proposed letter to my legislators (and maybe to the local paper)
Energy prices are going up for everybody because of increased demand coming from data centers, large manufacturers, electric vehicle owners, and electric heat pump users, according to NPR.
So these power users who are using large amounts of energy are causing prices to rise for everybody, and I don't think this is fair. I think we should have energy-consumption pricing brackets similar to how we have tax brackets.
If you use a low amount of energy each month (1 bedroom apartments), you should pay a lower rate for your energy than some mid-level users (two-story house + 2 electric cars), who should still pay a lower rate than high-usage consumers like data centers and manufacturing facilities.
These brackets would also incentivize home-owners, data-centers, and manufacturers to install solar to bring down their personal costs.
As it stands, poor people are subsidizing the middle class's energy consumption, and the middle class is subsidizing the data centers and manufacturers, and none of that subsidy is guaranteed to lead to public benefit or reduction of carbon emissions.
If the poor and middle class are to subsidize the wealthy, it should be through a tax and strategic development of our energy grid that will reduce costs and environmental impact in the long term, rather than laissez faire energy markets that punish the middle class and the poor without any guarantee of long-term improvements.
Edit: I added the following two sentences for my Letter To The Editor for my local paper.
Please email your state legislators in support of this idea.
In other news, the dictatorship is getting more real every day, and worker strikes, even if rare, perhaps one day a week or one day a month, could show real power of the people.
My next steps
- Compile a list of my personal legislators and their contact information - governor, state senator, state house rep (any elected agency heads?)
- (optional) Compile a list of secondary influencers to my legislators - Local Democrats, Local Republicans, my City Council and County Board representatives, and possibly state agencies
- Send the letter to my legislators
- (optional) Modify the letter and send it to secondary influencers (I might skip this as to avoid overwhelm)
- Modify letter and submit to my local paper
Background
NPR Writes that energy prices (according to an interviewee) are up because of:
increasing demand from data centers and large manufacturing as well as procedural issues slowing down new renewable projects.
Another interviewee notes:
The increased demand stems from data centers, increasing adoption of electric heat pumps and the rise of electric vehicles, according to NERC.
So energy prices are increasing for everybody because of some energy consumers who are using more. This means that the poor people are subsidizing the high-users. I'm pro electric vehicle, but I don't think it's my responsibility to pay more for power because my neighbor got an electric car. It shouldn't be their responsibility to pay more for gas just because I have a pickup truck. (but I suppose they do, because of how supply & demand work)
So I would like to write to my legislators advocating for energy pricing brackets - those who use less energy should pay a lower rate per kWh. There should be at least three brackets - low consumption, average consumption, industrial consumption. I'd be open to four or five brackets - whatever makes sense based upon the data.
Now, how this should be legislated and how power companies should handle auctions for energy ... that's not my problem. That's something my legislators would need to figure out if they like the plan.