A bill that aimed to lower Southwest Virginia residents’ rising electricity bills by allowing localities to shop around for cheaper rates failed to advance out of a Virginia Senate committee on Monday.
Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County, and Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, originally proposed legislation, SB 1281, that would allow any Appalachian Power customer with a bill 25% or more above the state average to purchase electricity from another provider.
On Monday, Hackworth presented a substitute to the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. It would set up a pilot program under which a municipality in Appalachian Power’s territory could aggregate the electricity demand of its residential, commercial, and industrial customers and use that to purchase power from another electricity provider on their behalf.
Hackworth said his constituents “simply cannot afford the high electricity rates they are being charged.”
“Our constituents are below the poverty line,” he told the committee. “We have some of the most poorest people in our part of the state. They’re the most vulnerable, and they’re being taken the greatest advantage … The buck stops with us.”
The average Appalachian Power bill has risen about $50 in the past three years to approximately $174. In 2007, it was about $66.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of customers see their service disconnected each year for failing to pay their bills, Hackworth said. The power company has about 540,000 customers in Western Virginia.
Hackworth presented committee members with a packet that he said contained 136 customer testimonies. As an example, he quoted a constituent who said her 78-year-old grandmother in Marion keeps her lights off and unused appliances unplugged and yet faced electric bills of $321 in December and $491 in January.
“‘My grandmother has severe anxiety, and AEP has only made this anxiety worse for her when figuring out her bills and how to pay them,’” Hackworth said, reading from the written testimony. AEP is American Electric Power, the parent company of Appalachian Power.
Under Hackworth and Pillion’s proposal, the pilot program would begin on Dec. 1, 2025. The State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities in Virginia, would evaluate the program’s effectiveness and report its findings to the governor and top lawmakers by Dec. 1, 2027.
Hackworth said the program would be optional for localities and would provide stable, lower prices for electricity customers who participated.
“This is a commonsense pilot program that has a sunset date that has been proven to work very effectively in other states,” he said.
Rocky Hill, president of the nonprofit God’s Rockstars, spoke in support of the legislation, describing himself as a “spokesperson for Southwest Virginia.”
Hill said many middle-class families do not qualify for assistance to help with their utility bills because of their income but still must pay or face having their service cut off.
“We truly have no choice,” Hill said, adding that some residents face going without food or medicine to pay their electric bills.
Steve Smith, president and CEO of Food City, a grocery chain that operates in Southwest Virginia and four other states, testified by video in support of the bill.
“We pay more than 30% more [for electricity] in Southwest Virginia than we do in East Tennessee,” he said.
Appalachian Power representative Ron Jefferson said that while he recognizes the utility’s rates are high, enacting the proposed program would remove consumer protections that would otherwise help those who don’t participate.
“When you get providers coming in cherry-picking customers, the other customers are going to be left holding the bag,” Jefferson said.
Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax County, expressed concern about what would happen if Virginia started “pulling the threads on our regulatory system.”
He noted that Virginia has a Commission on Electric Utility Regulation set up to study the commonwealth’s energy policy and energy-related legislation.
“I just feel really uncomfortable when we’re just throwing different bills up against the wall to see what sticks and try to make policy out of them,” Marsden said. “As good as they happen to sound, there are some unintended consequences.”
The 15-member, Democratic-majority Senate committee voted 8-7 in favor of Marsden’s motion to pass the bill by indefinitely rather than advance it to the full Senate. The vote was mostly along party lines, but Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, joined the committee’s Republicans in voting against the motion.
The motion included a pledge to send a letter to the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation for further study on the issue.
That commission’s chair, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, said that the commission might be able to study Hackworth’s proposal within the next two years.
“This is definitely something that we want to look at, and we’re planning on looking at, but the timing of it is what we’re trying to figure out, given everything else we’re being asked to do,” Surovell said.
Hackworth said that he has been trying to work with Appalachian Power on the issue of rising customer bills for four years and “we are known to be slow in the General Assembly.”
“The molasses barrel just keeps getting thicker and thicker. We need relief now,” he said.
