Some of the votes Americans cast on Tuesday that may have mattered most for the climate were quite a bit downballot from the presidential ticket: A handful of states held elections for the commissions that regulate utilities, and thereby exercise direct control over what sort of energy mix will fuel the coming years’ expected growth in electricity demand. In three closely watched races around the country — the utility commissions in Arizona, Montana, and Louisiana — Republican candidates either won or are in the lead. While they generally pitched themselves to voters as market-friendly, favoring an all-of-the-above approach to energy, clean energy advocates interviewed by Grist cast these candidates as deferential to the power companies they aspired to regulate.
[Read more: How state utility commissions got so much power]
Arizona is, in a word, sunny. Its geography makes it “the famously obvious place to build solar,” said Caroline Spears, executive director of Climate Cabinet, a nonprofit that works to get clean energy advocates elected. But its utilities have built just a sliver of the potential solar energy that there is room for in the state — and the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities, is partly to blame for that. That commission’s most recent goal for renewable energy, set in 2007, was an unambitious 15 percent to be reached by 2025. “Their goals are worse than where Texas currently is and where Iowa currently is on clean energy,” Spears said. What’s more, the current slate of commissioners is in the process of considering whether to ditch that goal altogether.
Those commissioners have held a 4-1 Republican majority on the commission since 2022, and in that time they’ve approved the construction of new gas plants, imposed new fees on rooftop solar, and raised electricity rates. Tuesday’s election, in which three of the commission’s five seats were on the ballot, gave voters a chance to reverse course. The race hasn’t yet been officially called, but three Republican candidates are in the lead, ahead of three Democratic candidates, two Green candidates, and a write-in independent. (The election is structured such that candidates don’t run for individual seats or in districts; rather, the seats go to the three top vote-getters.)
So far, the Republican candidate who’s gotten the most votes is Rachel Walden, a member of the Mesa school board who’s made a name for herself in Arizona politics with transphobic comments and a failed lawsuit against the Mesa school district over its policies on student bathroom usage. “She’s a candidate who doesn’t have a lot of specific energy experience but seems to be very diehard to the kind of MAGA movement more broadly,” said Stephanie Chase, a researcher at the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog nonprofit.
In Montana, three seats were open on the Public Service Commission, but one in particular — District 4 — captured the attention of clean energy advocates. Elena Evans, an independent, began her campaign after learning that the incumbent commissioner in her district, Jennifer Fielder, was running unopposed. The race focused less on clean energy than affordability: Evans said in interviews she decided to run because of the 28 percent rate hike that the all-Republican commission had approved. In the closest of the commission’s three elections, Fielder beat Evans with 55 percent of the vote.
Like in Arizona, the Montana PSC has neglected to take advantage of its state’s untapped potential for renewable energy — wind. A Montana commissioner was captured on a hot mic in 2019 candidly acknowledging that the purpose of a rate cut for renewable energy providers was to kill solar development in the state.
While one independent on the commission wouldn’t have likely swayed the course of its decisions, Evans would have had the opportunity “to be a consumer voice,” in Chase’s words, as the commission deliberated not only over future decisions on renewable energy, but also the looming question of the future of a coal plant in eastern Montana. The Colstrip power plant has been co-owned by utilities in nearby states, which, in anticipation of those states’ renewable energy targets kicking in, are transferring their shares of its energy to the Montana utility NorthWestern Energy. These deals could saddle ratepayers in Montana with new costs, both for the continued operation of the coal plant and for compliance with environmental regulations.
In Louisiana, the largest utility regulated by the Public Service Commission is Entergy, which Daniel Tait, a researcher at the Energy and Policy Institute, described as “one of the most reviled utilities in the country by its customers.” Louisiana’s utilities are legally permitted to donate directly to the campaign funds for commissioners who regulate them — and they do so in great volume.
The race to replace Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Craig Greene, who is retiring at the end of his term, commanded attention because, though a Republican representing a deep-red part of the state, Greene is considered the swing vote among the five commissioners, two of whom are Democrats. In his eight years in office, he’s become known for “his willingness to hold Entergy accountable,” according to Tait — voting with the progressive commissioner Davante Lewis on issues like energy efficiency programs and limiting utilities’ political spending.
On Tuesday, Greene’s seat was won by Jean-Paul Coussan, a state senator from Lafayette who accepted utility donations, supports an expansion of gas infrastructure, and has criticized renewables for “driv[ing] out oil and gas jobs.” Tait described Coussan as less hostile to clean energy than his Republican opponent in the race, Julie Quinn, but further right than the Democrat he defeated, Nick Laborde.
In an interview with the Louisiana Illuminator, Coussan cast his energy policies as based on free markets. “It’s critical that we look at the most affordable options. I think renewables are currently part of the matrix and will be in the future,” he said. “We also need to address the reality that we’ve got an abundant supply of natural gas.”
Coussan has also spoken of the needs of Louisianans who are suffering from repeated hurricanes and rising rates. “The things that he has said since being elected are contradictory in nature,” Tait said of Coussan. “He says he wants affordable and reliable energy, and that he cares about storm protection, because there are so many issues in Louisiana, but the very thing that’s creating these storms is climate change — which is being caused by carbon emissions.”
“You can’t make the problem worse and say you want to work hard to solve the problem,” Tait added.
Updates: An earlier version of this story claimed that Montana’s District 4 race was the only PSC race in that state with a non-Republican candidate. In fact, Democrats also ran in Districts 2 and 3. We have corrected the error. This article also wrote that shares of the Colstrip power plant were being sold by neighboring utility companies to NorthWestern Energy. They are, in fact, being transferred at no monetary cost. We have updated the article accordingly.
