Paul Cicio, Chair of the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition, released the following statement in response to the Edison Electric Institute’s letter to FERC:

“The last-minute intervention by the Edison Electric Institute to put lipstick on a pig is another desperate attempt by utilities to try and protect their transmission monopoly which increases their profits and consumers electricity prices.  

“To say that competition does not work is like saying King Charles is not British. The EEI letter repeats failed arguments and cites discredited utility created studies to make a policy argument that has been rejected by members of both parties and the courts.

“Transmission competition leads to lower electricity prices for consumers, which is sorely needed as the latest inflation numbers showed that electricity inflation continues to outpace the overall CPI. Last year, residential electricity prices increased by 15.7% per kWh and are expected to escalate further unless FERC acts to fully embrace transmission competition and let the free market bring costs down.”

The utilities have been using erroneous data and disproven claims to advance their argument. In a filing with FERC, the ETCC rebutted point by point the assertions made in the utility-funded DATA report. The key findings of the ETCC response to the utilities’ whitepaper were:

• Ignoring Success Stories: Utilities conveniently omitted successful competitive projects that, if included, directly undermine the utilities’ narrative.
• Cost Overruns Downplayed: The substantial cost increases in non-competitive transmission projects are conveniently ignored by utilities.
• Consumer Protections Neglected: Utilities downplay the safeguards, like cost caps, built into competitive projects to protect consumers.
• Unreliable Evidence: Utilities’ opposition relies on an unverifiable whitepaper and cherry-picked examples, raising concerns about credibility and factual basis.
• Inflation Ignored: The impact of inflation since 2019 is not considered, and some competitive projects even allow for inflation adjustments within project cost caps.
• Misleading Cost Claims: Utilities downplay the effectiveness of competitive cost controls and misrepresent data from select projects, offering an incomplete picture.

Competitively bid electricity transmission projects have been shown to reduce costs to consumers by up to 40 percent according to The Brattle Group – assuming a conservative estimate, if only 33% of new transmission projects were competitively bid and there is an average cost savings of 40%, ratepayers could save an estimated $277 billion. If all new transmission projects were competitively bid at an average cost savings of 40%, ratepayers could save an estimated $840 billion by 2050.

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