Luke Bassett: WV utility costs to spike if Congress doesn't act (ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä)

Outside the Mountain State, new data centers and manufacturing growth are suddenly increasing demand for electricity at incredible rates. One projection points to 30 gigawatts of new additions, equal to more than 10 power plants the size of John Amos coal power plant near Winfield. Just in the past few years, that has changed the accounting math for how electric utilities sell power and cover their costs for fuel at generators like John Amos, for the poles and wires delivering power to your house, or for the transmission lines that carry electricity out of the state to sell into our regional market -- the PJM grid. 

West Virginia has historically -- and proudly -- exported much of its energy, on coal trains, through gas pipelines or over electric transmission lines into the PJM grid. The demand for power, the aging existing generation, poles, and wires, increasing labor costs, and the volatile cost of fuels are all combining to raise your bills. The average retail price of electricity for all West Virginian customers rose nearly 45% between 2014 and 2024. One study estimates that West Virginia's rates could rise as much as 10% in the next five years, if the energy tax cuts get repealed or weakened.

Those costs are the central reason for the energy tax cuts currently on the books. These tax cuts were first enacted decades ago and have been extended on a bipartisan basis many times before being extended, expanded, and modernized in 2022. The current law enables homeowners to upgrade their homes to cut their energy bills, and its manufacturing tax cuts have kickstarted a factory-building boom, bringing jobs to West Virginia. Its electricity tax cuts are aiding utilities to plan for the long-term, build the cheapest, best equipment, and address growing regional demand.

I worked for Sen. Joe Manchin to secure those tax cuts and make sure that every West Virginian benefits by saving money on their bills. It's important to keep in mind that your utilities worked with us to make sure that they could pass the savings along to you, their customers. That includes West Virginia's electric utilities, who championed the energy tax cuts as a way to save residential and business customers money while responding to greater demand.

These tax cuts also are enabling the buildout of new factories like the steelmakers, battery makers, and bus builders popping up in West Virginia, and they keep factories humming that already make electrical equipment for use, like Steel of West Virginia in Huntington, Ferroglobe up the Kanawha River from ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, and more.

Now that the Senate has published its initial draft, there is a huge role for West Virginia's senators to play to improve the energy tax cuts that will keep costs low going forward. To do so, the Senate should ensure energy tax cuts for utilities run for 10 years without new rules that drive up their supply-chain costs instead of cutting them. Doing so will help utilities plan and build the projects that keep your bills affordable.

To do all of this, we need all of the energy tax cuts for all types of energy made easily accessible for utilities for as long as possible.

So, keep your bills low and the electricity flowing. Call your members of Congress and ask them to keep the energy tax cuts on the books, keep all of them across technologies for ten years and without overly complicated new rules.