Shutoffs

If companies make investments in old and dangerous technology, jeopardize public safety, jack up prices, pay executives outrageous salaries, pass all those costs on to customers and then deny some folks their product, you would think those companies go out of business. Not so with corporate utilities, who deal in the life-and-death provision of electricity and essentially hold consumers hostage to dirty power and high rates. A recent report we authored, “Powerless in the United States,” exposes the utility industry profiteering that we found has deprived households of power more than 5.7 million times since 2020 while returning billions of dollars to shareholders and executives. Utilities’ dangerous, short-sighted overinvestments in fossil-fuel infrastructure are driving fossil fuel price volatility and perpetuating the shutoffs crisis. And it’s all happening in the midst of catastrophic climate change that’s upending communities across the country with deadly blizzards, floods, fires and heatwaves.