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What the AZ Legislature Must Study: Community Choice Energy
~ by Lyla Yango
Community Choice Energy (CCE) has been one of my top priorities this legislative session. I am a 10th grader at Desert Mountain High School, and I work with Arizonans For Community Choice (AZ4CC) and Future Coalition to lobby for support for CCE at the city and state levels and to educate the community on CCE. CCE is one of those things that makes me so excited that I smile when I think of it. I am fighting the fight for CCE, because it is my duty to work for a more compassionate world. So, what is CCE and why am I creating so much suspense about it that you are falling off your seats reading this?
Well, funny you should ask! CCE is an energy model that allows cities, counties, or groups of cities to take control of their energy supply. For too long, utility monopolies have dictated where our power comes from and how much it costs, but CCE gives the power back to the people. Local governments would have the authority to source and purchase electricity that their residents and businesses choose, while still relying on existing utilities for distribution of power and infrastructure maintenance.
Life with CCE would be so different from Arizona’s current energy monopoly system under utilities like Arizona Public Service (APS), Southwest Gas, and Tucson Electric Provider (TEP) that are accommodated by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC)…wait. What is the ACC?! The ACC is a voter-elected government agency tasked with regulating utilities. They approve or deny requested rate hikes, and lately the 4-1 majority Republican ACC has done a lot of approving. In 2023 alone, the Republican commissioners approved 6 rate hikes including fuel adjustment charges that the state agency that represents consumer interests, the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO), opposed. This year, the same Republican commissioners passed another APS rate hike that increased residential rates by 8%. So what can we do when ACC commissioners help energy monopolies instead of the people? Push for CCE!
Let’s zoom in on life with CCE:
- more renewable energy
- lower energy bills
- consumer choice & protection
- rather than monopoly utilities continuing to profit from overblown prices,
- cities/counties would use profits to invest in energy projects the community wants
- local jobs creation
- power independence
- political power of monopoly utilities given back to the people
With fossil-fuel caused climate change making Arizona hotter than hot and the production/use of fossil fuels keeping ozone and particle pollution at unhealthy levels, we must make a just transition from fossil fuel power to renewable power. CCE will speed up the transition to renewable energy while lowering energy bills, fostering a competitive and free market, and all the other listed benefits.
Ok, so why doesn’t Arizona have CCE already? There are multiple reasons. The biggest obstacles to CCE are the monopoly utilities and our majority Republican state legislature. You see, CCE can only be enabled at the state level, so even if cities want CCE they can only get it if the state legislature passes CCE-enabling legislation. And with monopoly utilities using their enormous political influence and money to persuade legislators to support their monopoly, passing CCE-enabling legislation is difficult, but not impossible!
As such, AZ4CC, my fellow fellows at Future Coalition, and I are meeting with city governments, state legislators, grassroots organizations (like the Sierra Club!), companies, political think-tanks, and everyone else to get your support for a CCE-enabling bill. We can build such a diverse coalition, because CCE fulfills many different objectives and values of different groups, from conservative free marketers to progressive climate activists. Our ultimate goal in building this coalition is to show Arizona state policymakers that we want CCE-enabling legislation.
Whoever you are, I urge you to join us in the fight for CCE by contacting your city council members and state legislators, declaring your business’s support, joining AZ4CC, or whatever you are able to do. To ask what you can do and have any questions answered, you can go to AZ4CC's contact page here. And if you need more information about CCE, here are some trustworthy resources: US EPA, California Public Utilities Commission, and AZ4CC. You will become starry-eyed with the not-so-far-off dream of Community Choice Energy.
~ by Lyla Yango -- who is...
- a Community Catalyst Fellow working with the Sierra Club this legislative session,
- a sophomore in high school,
- and an activist with Arizonans for Community Choice and the AZ Youth Climate Coalition.
- Her priority is a more compassionate world -- that respects and protects nature as its family.