Senator Hickenlooper calls on FTC to investigate high heating bills

Senator John Hickenlooper and three other senators have asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into what he calls "potentially harmful and deceptive actions."

The letter focuses on how a changing energy landscape threatens traditional electric profit models.

Senator Hickenlooper will serve as the chair of the Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee, which provides oversight on policies meant to protect consumers. 

In May 2022, a petition submitted by more than 230 organizations, including Environment Colorado and the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Colorado, requested an FTC investigation of the electric utility industry. 

The letter states, in part: 

"The electricity industry is undergoing the most transformational shift since its creation. Consumers increasingly want choice, states are establishing robust renewable electricity targets, and clean technologies and services are multiplying and undercutting the cost of incumbent fuel providers.

These trends threaten the 100-year-old utility business model predicated on increasing consumer demand and utility capital expenditures. Some utilities have responded by engaging in questionable practices to subvert these trends in the interest of protecting their profits over the pockets of their customers, harming poor communities and communities of color in particular. These utility practices stifle clean energy competition, thus threatening the successful implementation of President Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act. We believe these disturbing anti-competitive and anti-democratic incidents merit an FTC investigation."