We're outraged that consumers in 11 states could pay an extra $950 on average on their electric bills because of poor investments made by their local utilities. Ratepayers are being robbed to reward risky investments in polluting power plants while utility executives are laughing all the way to the bank.

As states across the country are restructuring their electricity markets, ostensibly to provide competition among electricity providers, utilities are asking for a ratepayer-funded bailout of their uneconomic investments. The PIRGs and other consumer and environmental groups in several states have fought back against these request for "stranded cost" recovery, charging that these bailouts are unfair to consumers and will hurt efforts to shift towards clean energy.

This report shows that, so far the price of utility deregulation has been too high. Consumers are paying through the nose and utilities are getting a subsidy for their aging, dangerous nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, most deregulation bills lack clean energy provisions and fail to clean up the dirtiest fossil energy plants.

This report examines the major issues surrounding the bailout of utilities' failed investments for 11 states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, New Hampshire and Montana) across the country. Key findings of the report include:

1. The total cost for these 11 states may be as high as $112 billion. California utilities had asked for $28.5 billion, making it the number one state for estimated stranded costs.

2. Residential consumers in 11 states will pay an average of $950 more on their electric bills while commercial consumers will pay an average of $6,500 more on their electric bills. SECC estimates that the average residential ratepayer in New Hampshire will pay an astounding $1,963, the highest of the 11 states studied, while the average commercial consumer in Illinois will pay an extra $12,314 the highest out of the 11 states for commercial consumers.

3. Nuclear power, once touted as "too cheap to meter" now accounts for the majority of the investments regarded as "stranded" by the utilities. Commonwealth Edison in Illinois has asked for $12.6 billion, the highest nuclear "stranded costs" of the utilities studied.

4. Based on projected analyses and initial experience in California, providing ratepayer-funded subsidies will disrupt market mechanisms being introduced through deregulation, leading to serious economic effects. The report also investigates wildly differing estimates of stranded costs, and analyzes legal issues.

PIRGs in eleven states are releasing this report to expose the outrageous ripoffs being perpetrated around the country. We should not reward utilities for poisoning our air, land and water. We call on Congress to stop the bailout and make the polluters pay for their poor decisions. We call on voters in Massachusetts and California to repeal the bailout in these states and protect their pocketbooks and the environment. We should not be denied a clean, safe affordable energy future because of these outrageous bailouts."

---30-30-30---