Customers Fed Up! FP&L Hikes Electric Bills Again!
Public Service Commission (PSC) is set to yet again rubber-stamp new FP&L rate increases.
Hard-hit Panhandle residents are saying enough!
WHAT: Panhandle residents gather at City Hall to speak out against FP&L’s unfair and never-ending rate hikes, which are hitting them harder than customers in other parts of Florida.
This comes on the eve of Florida’s PSC meeting on Tuesday, March 7, to consider FP&L’s request to increase electric bills for “storm recovery” and to “cost recover” for their errors in projecting the cost a natural gas.
https://www.floridapsc.com/commission-conferences-of-the-fpsc?agendadate=March%2007%202023
EVENT DETAILS:
When: Monday, March 6, 2023, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Where: Pensacola City Hall, 222 W. Main St., Pensacola, FL 32502
Who: Sponsored by Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship
Why: To ensure that FP&L and regulators hear Panhandle customers loud and clear: “We should not be on the hook for monopoly FP&L’s bad decisions.”
Background:
Under last year’s rate increase, FP&L’s Panhandle customers were hit with a bigger increase than customers in other parts of Florida. At the time, FP&L promised that their bills would lower over time. Instead, the monopoly utility is back at the trough again for more rate hikes.
This time, FP&L wants customers to shoulder the cost of the monopoly’s poor storm planning and its failure to diversify away from expensive natural gas for electricity generation. Since companies started exporting U.S. natural gas (FP&L parent NextEra Energy began exporting natural gas in 2008), it has been clear that natural gas prices would increase over time due to global demand, but FP&L has stubbornly refused to significantly diversify away from gas generation. Now customers are paying the price.
Ideally, Florida would allow free market competition to keep FP&L and other utilities from overcharging customers. Absent that, the PSC has to provide the check on this rate hike addiction by just saying no to FP&L’s latest price gouge.
More about CRS:
Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (CRS) is a national nonprofit grassroots organization with more than 23,000 members, including more than 3,500 in Florida. The organization is founded on the premise that environmental stewardship and natural resource conservation are inherently conservative, and that true conservatives endeavor to be good stewards of the natural systems and resources that sustain life on earth.