Anachronism
Rookie
- Banned
- #21
Government sets your rates and removes your competition. You see that as minor regulation? Seriously?
The government sets the rates based on the information that we provide them. Now what they do with that info varies from state to state. Some are little more than rubber stamps. Others (like most in the Northeast) can be very tedious to deal with.
As for removing our competition; that's not necessarily true. Each city and town does have the legal ability to run their own utilities individually or in groups (and more than a few do). Individual customers now have the ability to choose where they want their power to come from to a lesser degree. There are also a lot more options these days for people to go "off the grid" with different forms of private generation systems.
No matter who you have for a company, the only significant differences are in the customer service and the maintenance of the physical facilities; neither of which are things that the states regulate. They can fine us for poor customer service and for interuptions, but there is very little they can do to make us change anything.