Most people don’t spend much time thinking about their state’s public utilities commission – if they’ve even heard of it at all. But these regulatory bodies, made up of just a few hundred commissioners across the country, make decisions that impact the cost of your monthly utility bill, the types of energy powering your home, and the future of the electric grid itself. In an era of rising electricity demand and an urgent need for clean energy, public utility commissions hold immense power over how states navigate the energy transition.
Charles Hua, founder of the nonprofit PowerLines, sat down with Yale Climate Connections to break down who these commissioners are, how they make decisions, and why the public’s engagement – or lack thereof – can shape the future of our energy system.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Yale Climate Connections: Who are the state’s public utilities commissioners, and what kinds of decisions do they make?
Charles Hua: There are [about] 200 state public utility commissioners across the country – every state has [a commission]. In about 40 of the states, they’re appointed – usually by the governor – although in a couple of states, it’s by the legislature. And then, in about 10 states, they’re elected.
These 200 people oversee more than $200 billion a year in utility spending. So that includes what types of energy generation utilities invest in, from coal and gas to solar, wind, and nuclear. In some states, they have authority over where clean energy projects are sited and permitted, and they oftentimes have some level of control over transmission in terms of the siting authority of new power lines.
They also determine how much people pay for their utility bills – they set electricity rates. That’s particularly important because one in three Americans struggle to pay their utility bills. So there’s a massive affordability crisis that’s only going to get worse, especially as we expand and modernize our grid infrastructure.
So these 200 people are really important. And I think we need to view them as the Supreme Court justices of the energy space in terms of the impact that they have over the decisions that we are concerned about and ultimately need to see progress on.
Editor’s Note: Public utility commissions oversee all capital and operating expenditures for investor-owned utilities. The capital expenditures for investor-owned utilities are estimated to be over $200 billion in 2025, and the amount is substantially greater when operating expenditures are included. Hua clarified by email that he likes using the “200 people oversee more than $200 billion in utility spending” because it’s a helpful mnemonic to help folks remember and it provides a conservative estimate.
YCC: Can you put the public utility commissions’ work into the context of the larger transitions that are happening now?
Hua: The stakes cannot be higher at this particular moment. With the rise of AI and data centers, as well as the onshoring of manufacturing, electricity demand in the U.S. is increasing at a faster rate than since the 1990s. And that growth in electricity demand means that we will need to build significantly new resources to power that demand.
Now the question is, what kind of resources are we going to invest in? And if you look at what’s being proposed right now, it is largely a combination of renewables, but also a significant amount of new fossil gas capacity.
And we have a significant challenge ahead of us, which is the potential for retrenchment on these clean energy and climate targets. I think it’s critical, especially in this context, to realize that every other country is very much looking at what the U.S. is doing to respond to this moment. And if other countries are looking at the U.S. and saying “If the U.S., one of the wealthiest countries in the world, can invest in new fossil resources to meet growing demand, why can’t we do that as well?” And so there’s a huge need for everybody to just be aware of the dynamics that are at play.
And this space is changing rapidly. So the bottom line is we need to operate with a deep level of humility and strategy while still being confident that we can actually grow our economy, serve the needs of our most vulnerable communities, and power the electricity needs of our society.
YCC: Can you walk me through the different ways that the public can engage with public utility commissions?
Hua: There are two particularly important types of proceedings, called dockets, that public utility commissions engage in that represent opportunities for people to engage: integrated resource plans (IRP) and rate cases.
An IRP is a plan by which utilities propose how they will invest billions of dollars over a certain time frame, generally around 15 to 30 years. Most states have an IRP, and they usually have to update it every two to five years. And this is basically where they say, “This is how we want to invest our money in transmission, distribution, and all different kinds of generation assets.” And then the regulators have to ultimately look at their proposal and say, “This makes sense. This doesn’t make sense. Let’s do more of this. Let’s not do that.” So the regulators have a key role – they’re essentially grading the homework of utilities. And so that’s why having really strong, robust, healthy regulators and regulatory infrastructure is so critical.
Another type [of proceeding] is called rate cases. When a utility needs to increase or – more rarely – reduce rates, they have to go in front of the commission and say, “Look, we need more money because our capital expenditures on this increased or our operating expenditures on, let’s say, tree trimming was more than we expected.” So anytime that they’re looking to increase or reduce rates they have to go in front of the commission and get approval.
Sometimes engaging means actually showing up in front of the [public utility commission] but there are many different ways for people to engage. Arguably, the best way to engage, particularly if you’re just getting started, is to find a group that’s already engaged at the commission and figure out how you can support their efforts.
YCC: What are some of the barriers that prevent people from making their voices heard with public utility commissions?
Hua: First is that the vast majority of Americans aren’t even aware of what a [public utility commission] is. Nobody should know what a [public utility commission] is – it’s like the offensive lineman in football – if you hear about them, frankly, it’s probably because something went wrong.
But even if you’re aware of it, oftentimes they meet [during the day] when you’re working, and you’re not going to stop working to show up at a hearing. Even if you did, there’s a portion where you can provide public comment, but in many states, there’s no legal requirement for the commissions to actually listen to that and incorporate that into the case. Other times, they want to listen to and incorporate it, but legally, they’re not allowed to. So even if you have a supportive commissioner, that’s an issue.
But let’s say all that happened. How does a commissioner weigh the evidence of a single member of the public relative to a utility company that’s running and operating the grid assets? Are you going to somehow be able to convince the regulator that you know more about reliability than they do?
So that is not to say that showing up publicly does not have an impact. It absolutely does. There are many instances where public participation has resulted in reduced rate hikes, significantly more favorable policies for things like solar panels on your roof, and other smart, common sense measures like energy efficiency.
It’s also a question of being strategic about who is showing up in front of these commissions and what you can do to align with other folks and bring new members into this broader coalition of folks who are engaged. It can’t just be climate advocates; it needs to be a broad swath of people who are impacted by [public utility commission] decisions, and frankly, that cuts across political ideology in most instances where people just want affordable, reliable, and generally sustainable electricity.
YCC: Can you give an example of a situation where community input made a difference?
Hua: There are a lot of examples of community engagement that’s really worked in lockstep with the [public utility commission] to advance positive outcomes. I’ll give you one example that’s occurring right now in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts is an interesting state when it comes to these sorts of issues because there’s a huge appetite from a public policy standpoint for electrification, for greater adoption of heat pumps. There’s a significant population that’s on delivered fuels right now, which is one of the most expensive ways to heat homes, and a significant proportion of the population is on the gas system in Massachusetts. Absent financing solutions or financial support, electrifying is often difficult financially.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities has been working in partnership with community advocates to advance an energy affordability and burden docket. They’re actively investigating how the state can reduce energy burden by looking at what the state can do around rate design and how different rate structures can lead to different outcomes from an electrification and equity standpoint.
And so that’s an example where there’s a healthy level of community engagement that’s working in lockstep and in tandem with the government entities involved in moving those issues forward.
YCC: What do you want the average person to know about how commissions impact their daily lives?
Hua: There’s a deep irony here where [public utility commissions] are one of the wonkiest things in this whole climate and energy space. But [public utility commissions] directly impact people’s personal pocketbooks, livelihoods, and material conditions. These public utility commissions set the rates, determine your utility bills, and have the power to make sure that utilities are making investments that actually result in better consumer outcomes and more clean energy deployed on the system.
So at minimum, you should look up who your home state’s public utility commissioners are and get a sense of what types of decisions they make, how they impact different conditions in your state as it relates to implementing your state’s clean energy policies or setting your utility rates or expanding our grid infrastructure or anything of that sort.
But as we face unprecedented increases in electricity demand over the next couple of years, the decisions that these 200 people make will have a tremendous influence over what the future of our energy system looks like, particularly because there’s a chance that the energy infrastructure we build as a society [will last] 30, 50, 80-years and be locked in all the way to the end of the century.
And so if we don’t pay attention to what investments these utility companies are making – and the public utility commissioners are approving – then we have a chance to either hit our clean energy targets as a society or to go wildly amiss. And I think it’s incumbent on all of us to have some level of awareness of these decision-makers so that we can make sure that they’re ultimately held accountable to the public interest and making sure that they are doing everything that they can to advance a more affordable, reliable and sustainable energy system for us all.
Tools and further reading
Public utilities commission: structures and members by state
NAACP guide to engaging public utility commissions
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