Power Struggle: How Shareholder Primacy in the Electrical Utility Sector Is Holding Back an Affordable and Just Energy Transition

Instead of reinvesting earnings into more efficient, zero-carbon energy systems for consumers and future generations, this brief details how US investor-owned utilities have instead distributed over $250 billion—or 86 percent of net earnings—to shareholders over the past decade, at tremendous cost to a just transition.

The power struggle between public and corporate power over the future of electricity requires state and federal regulators to better align electric utilities with the public interest, a just transition, and a zero-carbon economy.

In “Power Struggle: How Shareholder Primacy in the Electrical Utility Sector Is Holding Back an Affordable and Just Energy Transition,” Niko Lusiani offers a number of policy recommendations to head off creeping shareholder primacy in the electricity sector, including: 

• Creating a ban or very low bright-line limits on share buybacks; 
• Implementing an annual shareholder payout cap, prioritizing reinvestment in efficiency and resiliency;
• Instituting a new set of binding fiduciary duties, toward alignment with the public interest; and
• Establishing clear guardrails to protect against utility lobbying efforts currently undermining a just transition.

Read the rest of the “All Economic Policy Is Climate Policy” series.