The last time the Maine Public Utilities Commission considered an electricity price hike, the proposal received fewer than 90 comments from the public.
Three years later, amid skyrocketing energy prices, more than 800 people weighed in on the plan, showing up to public hearings and even protesting outside.
The commission last month ultimately rejected the proposal that would have raised bills by about $35 per month for customers of Central Maine Power, the state’s largest electricity provider. In explaining the denial, Commission Chair Philip Bartlett cited growing energy costs.
“There’s no question that affordability is increasingly an issue, not just with respect to electricity prices, but across the entire economy,” Bartlett told Stateline. “And people are feeling enormous pressure.”
Rising utility prices are increasingly drawing scrutiny from state regulators and lawmakers nationwide. Given the public outcry, many state leaders are considering rate freezes, additional energy assistance funds or new rates targeting large energy users such as data centers. But states only have so much control; regulators say they can’t change the fundamental market dynamics that will likely continue to push prices up.
Between January and September of this year, average home electricity rates increased 11.7% — more than triple the rate of inflation, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs. Average electric bills increased nearly 30% between 2021 and 2025, climbing from $121 to $156 per month.
Many low-income households have long struggled to cover utility bills. Now, advocates say, high prices are affecting a growing swath of the middle class.
Utility prices played a major role in recent Democratic gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia. And in Georgia, Democrats flipped two seats on the board that regulates public utilities — the first time Democrats won statewide constitutional office in nearly two decades.
Most consumers get their electricity from utilities that must seek state consent for rate changes, with appointed or elected state boards approving price structures.
In Washington state, Ann Rendahl, one of three members of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, said state utility regulators always consider affordability when making rate decisions. Now those deliberations have attracted much more public and political scrutiny.
“We’re hearing from more and more people,” she said. “I think it’s becoming more of a concern politically as well as legislatures and governors hear about this.”
Prices have been affected by a multitude of factors: Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has disrupted global oil and gas supplies; extreme weather events; and rising demand driven by the artificial intelligence boom and energy-intensive data centers have all played a role.
Major utility providers say they are focused on keeping electricity affordable and reliable. They point to massive upgrades to the grid as a primary driver of rising prices.
While state attention on the issue is growing, experts see no immediate relief in sight for consumers.
In Maine, a separate rate increase request will likely come before regulators soon. And the Maine Public Utilities Commission recently approved a supply price increase estimated to raise customer bills by $13 to $17 a month.
In Florida, regulators just approved a $6.9 billion rate increase for the state’s largest utility, which opponents said was the largest hike in state history. The typical bill will rise by $2.50 per month to $136.64 next year. But because of other recent rate increases, the average customer will pay hundreds of dollars more each year than they did in 2021, when the typical monthly bill was $101.70, The Associated Press reported.
Amid rising demand, the consultant firm ICF predicts U.S. residential customers could see electricity rates increase 15% to 40% by 2030, with some rates doubling by 2050.
“Like everything else, I think [utility] costs are not going down,” said Rendahl, who is also president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which represents state public service commissioners.
‘We can’t take it anymore’
While running her successful campaign for governor of New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill, then a U.S. House member, pledged she would declare a state of emergency on her first day to freeze utility rates.
“My priority is relief to New Jersey consumers, and I will bring everyone to the table to deliver it,” she said in September. Sherrill takes office in January, but many experts question how much she can do to lower prices.
Regulators there had already issued $100 utility bill credits to provide relief for all customers, the New Jersey Monitor reported.
“This should be helpful for people, but in no way solves the problem,” Zenon Christodoulou, a member of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, said in August.
President Donald Trump has dismissed broader affordability concerns as “a con job” by Democrats. But Republican state officials have underscored the growing strain of electric bills.
Months before Democrats in Georgia attracted national attention for winning election to the utility board, GOP lawmakers there were raising concerns about the growing data center industry and had proposed legislation to protect ratepayers.
In September, Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun directed his newly appointed consumer advocate to dive into rising electricity bills, specifically targeting utility profits. The governor said utility investors, not ratepayers, should bear more of the pain of rising prices.
“We can’t take it anymore,” Braun said in a news release.
Infrastructure updates increase costs
In justifying rising prices, utility companies have pointed to a wave of massive investments in the electric grid. Utilities are on track to spend $208 billion this year, according to the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s investor-owned electric utilities.
Members of that group, which provide power to 250 million Americans, are projected to make capital expenditures of more than $1.1 trillion between 2025 and 2029.
Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the institute, told Stateline in a statement that the nation’s electric companies are focused on keeping electricity as “reliable and as affordable as possible” by “making essential investments to lower costs and protect America’s most important machine—the U.S. electric grid.”
But utility companies have “perverse incentives” to drive up capital expenses, said David Pomerantz, executive director of the nonprofit Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group tracking fossil fuel and utility industries.
Utilities are ensured a certain return on their capital investments, which he said can push them to spend heavily on projects that provide questionable benefits. State commissions set a rate of return for energy projects aimed at ensuring utilities can attract investors. That gives states an enormous amount of influence over prices, Pomerantz said.
“At the risk of sounding a little flip about this, it’s actually a lot easier for utilities than it is for, say, grocery prices,” he said. “What they’re allowed to charge customers is usually set by a group of three or five people.”
While politicians increasingly acknowledge the strain of rising utility costs, Pomerantz said it’s unclear whether state leaders will actually lower utility profits to provide relief for customers.
“Democrats and Republicans suddenly realize they have a crisis on their hands, and so the rhetoric has changed a lot in just the last few months,” he said. “It’s good rhetoric, but is anything different going to happen?”
More households struggle with bills
As bills have increased, many residents have fallen behind.
An analysis of consumer credit data from the left-leaning groups Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers found about 1 in 20 households — some 14 million Americans — had utility bills at least 90 days past due in June.
Between March 2022 and June 2025, the report found average overdue balances climbed from $597 to $789.
“It’s a real source of financial anxiety for working people who are trying to figure out how to stay warm in Wisconsin or not die from heat stroke in Arizona,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of Protect Borrowers, an organization originally founded to advocate for student loan borrowers.
Pierce said the growing utility debt speaks to wider financial concerns across the country, as overall household debt balloons.
“Our theory of the case here is that Americans are struggling, which is the same thing Americans will tell you when you talk to them,” he said.
The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly known as LIHEAP, has faced multiple threats from the Trump administration, which sought to eliminate its funding, fired top agency staff and withheld pledged funds. But amid rising political pressure, the federal government did release those funds last month.
While that’s good news for many households, the buying power of the program has significantly decreased because of rising energy prices, said Mark Wolfe, an energy economist and executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state LIHEAP directors.
Many liberal-led states have their own supplementary energy assistance programs, Wolfe noted. Lawmakers in some states have sought to boost those programs. Oregon, for instance, this year doubled its assistance fund from $20 to $40 million.
“It happened pretty quickly,” Wolfe said of the rising prices. “So it’s not just poor families who are struggling to pay their electric bill.”
Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at [email protected].
