Dear Friends,
This week was a busy and productive one in the Capitol, particularly as we continue working toward a responsible state budget.
On Tuesday, April 14, the House passed a General Appropriations bill (HB 2400) with bipartisan support, advancing it to the Senate by a vote of 107–94. In addition to the main budget bill, we also sent 13 additional budget-related pieces of legislation to the Senate.
This is an important step in what is always an ongoing negotiation process. Last year, we did not receive a proposed budget from the Senate until weeks after the deadline. By acting early this year, our goal is to encourage greater transparency, better communication, and a clearer understanding of Senate priorities as we work toward the June 30 budget deadline.
While much of the attention in Harrisburg is focused on the budget, I want to use the next two weekly emails to focus on an issue I hear about frequently from constituents: rising energy costs and what we are doing to address them.
Two weeks ago, I joined my colleagues in the Montgomery County Delegation in sending a letter to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) opposing proposed rate increases requested by PECO Energy Company.
If approved, these increases would have a real and immediate impact on household budgets:
- Electric bills would increase by 12.5%, or about $20.08 more per month
- Natural gas bills would increase by 11.4%, or about $14.52 more per month
For many families, that’s more than $400 per year in additional energy costs, at a time when the cost of living continues to rise across the board.
While utilities often cite infrastructure and operational needs in requesting increases, it is critical that these requests are carefully scrutinized. Families should not be asked to absorb higher costs without clear justification, transparency, and accountability.
I originally planned to use this email to discuss and push back against PECO’s proposed rate increase. However, I had to redraft this message after important news broke just yesterday.
Because of your advocacy, PECO has withdrawn its request for a rate increase.
After many of you signed and shared the petition my office shared, and made your voices heard, yesterday the Governor announced that PECO has decided to rescind its proposal for a 12.5% electric rate increase and an 11.4% natural gas increase.
This is a big win for families across southeastern Pennsylvania.
At a time when everyday costs are already stretching household budgets thin, stopping this proposed increase means real, immediate relief for the people we represent. I want to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to engage, speak out, and advocate—your voices made a difference.
We can and should invest in reliable energy infrastructure, but it cannot come at the expense of working families and seniors who are already feeling the pressure.
At a time when inflation continues to strain household budgets, we must ensure that ratepayers are protected, not treated as a backstop for rising corporate revenues. I remain committed to pushing back against unjustified increases and advocating for stronger oversight as I have, and continue to, push for ratepayer protections in Act 12 sales of municipal water and sewer systems.
It is also important to understand how Pennsylvania operates within the broader energy market, where prices are often influenced beyond our borders. These proposed rate increases are not happening in a vacuum. Across Pennsylvania, we are seeing rising energy costs driven in part by how our regional electricity market is structured.
Pennsylvania is part of the PJM Interconnection, which operates a futures “capacity market” that requires utilities to pay now to ensure there will be enough electricity available several years into the future. Those costs are locked in ahead of time and passed on to consumers in current bills. That means families can feel the impact of rising energy demand before that electricity is ever used.
One of the biggest drivers of these increases is the rapid growth in electricity demand, particularly from large-scale users like data centers. Even proposed or planned projects are factored into future demand projections, which drives up the cost of securing energy supply today. This process can become complicated because a proposed data center may be considered in multiple potential locations during planning. As a result, capacity forecasting can reflect demand in more than one place at the same time, even if only one project will ultimately be built. In effect, each proposal can contribute to higher projected usage across the system, even for facilities that do not yet exist and energy that is not yet being consumed. Because these costs are shared across the system, households and small businesses often end up paying a portion of those increases well before any new demand actually materializes.
At the same time, supply has struggled to keep pace due to delays in bringing new energy sources online and the retirement of older power plants. The result is a basic imbalance—higher demand and tighter supply—which also leads to higher prices.
For Pennsylvania, this challenge is even more pronounced because of our heavy reliance on natural gas for electricity generation. As global energy markets fluctuate, those price swings can quickly translate into higher costs here at home.
All these factors are contributing to rising utility bills, which is why it is so important that we carefully scrutinize proposed rate increases and pursue policies that protect consumers from unfair cost burdens.
While not all things impacting energy costs can be legislated at the state level, there are bills moving in the Pennsylvania House aimed at protecting consumers. Decisions made by regulators and lawmakers, including the PUC, have a direct impact on what you pay each month. Governor Shapiro is also pushing PJM to try to protect consumers.
One of the most important things you can do is continue to advocate for stronger consumer protections. Whether it’s asking your Senators to push for a discharge resolution on House Bill 1250 or urging House and Senate leaders to advance House Bill 1964, your advocacy is vital. Large companies can afford to hire lobbyists to work on their behalf around the clock. As citizens, our voices, and our attention to critical consumer protection legislation, are our most effective tools for driving meaningful change.
Next week, I will take a closer look at the steps we are taking in the House to protect consumers and plan responsibly for the future.