Citizens Utility Board: Affordability Reckoning: CUB seeks strong solutions for savings

MADISON — CUB, the nonpartisan consumer advocate for Wisconsin utility customers
today called for all candidates for office to embrace its nonpartisan four-point agenda to
help tackle the affordability challenge that voters are so concerned about in 2026.
The Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, the sole voice working for small business and
residential customers across the state, seeks to amp up planning, rein in profits, and
stop utilities from profiting on piles of rubble as part of its platform to tackle affordability.
CUB has shared its proposals with the gubernatorial campaigns and with legislative
candidates who have reached out to CUB.
“We are in the midst of a statewide and national awakening to the challenges with
energy affordability,” said Tom Content, CUB executive director. “These concerns are
heightened based on the public’s concerns about data centers and how much energy
they use — and CUB’s focus on holding Big Tech to its commitment to pay its way for
data centers’ energy needs.
CUB’s top recommendations for fixes start with giving the Public Service
Commission the tools to adequately evaluate multi-year plans for utilities’ energy
needs, including power plants and transmission lines. The state is required to ensure
projects are in the public interest. Having this review in one comprehensive analysis
would be more efficient and balanced than the piecemeal, siloed approach Wisconsin
has in place today.
Most states require utilities to submit plans for state review that help the regulators
overseeing the utilities to balance the utilities’ built-in profit incentive to overbuild the

system with the need to ensure utilities do everything in their power to evaluate cost-
saving options like energy efficiency, demand response, virtual power plants and the

like. A strong planning process should be paired with requirements for competitive
procurement for power plants and transmission lines, according to CUB.
“Without a robust planning process, we don’t have balance and we’re left with higher
bills. Instead of submitting plans to the monopoly regulator, utilities present their

spending plans to investors eager for the higher profits that come from their build-build-
build agenda,” Content said. “It’s long overdue that we give the state the tools it lacks.

Until we do, the PSC is trying to guide the state down the ‘energy future highway
without a GPS, or even a map.”
Beyond better planning, CUB seeks the other solutions for savings:

• Tie utility profits to affordability. The PSC has discretion in how it sets the
  profits every year for utilities, and changes in state law to empower the PSC to
  put affordability first are long overdue.
• End profits on dead power plants. Wisconsinites are paying $1 billion for dead
  power plants. And utilities are earning a nearly 10% return, not on power plants
  keeping the lights on, but on piles of rubble left after a plant shuts down.
• Ensure adequate funding for the PSC to regulate utilities and adequate
  representation for customers in PSC proceedings. With tech companies and
  their huge energy needs now part of the economy, the PSC and consumer
  advocate wll both need more resources to ensure the public interest is being met.
  Even before data centers, going up against utilities has always been a David v.
  Goliath proposition. As an example, in a typical case at the PSC, a utility will
  have 12-15 expert witnesses. At the Legislature, utilities have at least 25-50
  times the lobbying capacity of CUB.
  These four changes would go a long way toward restoring balance in utility regulation,
  in CUB’s view. A nonprofit organization with five employees, CUB works to advocate for
  the public interest, tackle affordability and high energy burden, and verify that Big Tech
  pays its way for data centers’ massive energy needs.
  “There’s a huge imbalance between supply and demand when the PSC reviews what
  utilities propose, and there’s a huge imbalance between the utility shareholders who
  have prospered and the customers paying bills rising faster than inflation,” Content said.
  “In this affordability moment. candidates should embrace strong solutions for savings.”
  CUB will explore challenges and solutions when it convenes the Consumers Forum on
  Energy Affordability on Nov. 17 at the Best Western Premier Park Hotel. Find out more
  and register to attend here.