By James H. Cawley

 

Families and businesses across Pennsylvania are constantly making choices based on budget, convenience, or preference. From a preferred grocery store or a gas station to streaming services and internet providers, competition has historically benefited consumers.

 

For 30 years in Pennsylvania, choosing an electricity provider has also brought benefits to consumers – from competitive pricing to options that prioritize lower-carbon resources, like wind and solar. But a decision before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) could potentially take away that choice, along with the stability and cost certainty that consumers have enjoyed.

 

The PUC could soon decide to eliminate consumer choice for electric customers – a decision that would greatly benefit monopoly utilities and would harm the two million Pennsylvania electric customers who pay monthly bills to parent company FirstEnergy Pennsylvania Electric Co., which owns Met-Ed, Penelec, Penn Power, and West Penn Power.

 

If adopted, this settlement before the PUC would force customers to leave the supplier they chose and unknowingly return to the default regulated utility when their existing contract expires.

 

In other words, unless a customer does the work to regularly opt in after each contract, their service could be automatically enrolled in the monopoly utility at the default rate, which is very often higher than the rates available to residents who shop for a supplier.

 

Despite being presented as a consumer protection measure, this settlement would hurt consumers by eliminating competitive retail energy markets and all the benefits that come with shopping for an electric supplier.

 

For decades, the PUC has prioritized consumer freedoms and protections. On its face, this wildly contradicts the PUC’s long-held precedent that customers themselves must be the ones to hold decision-making power to switch suppliers. Further, it seriously undermines the Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act of 1996 – a foundational customer choice law that is widely regarded as one of the nation’s best.

 

Former PUC Commissioner John Hanger recently researched this very topic. His findings showed that Pennsylvanians’ electric bills would easily be 40-50% higher today without that law.

 

In 2024 alone, residential customers enrolled in the lowest fixed-rate supply offer saved an average of 34%. Research found that, in that same year, customers in some regions — including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh — paid less than they did in 1996, adjusted for inflation. The act of choosing a supplier doesn’t just benefit the individual customer; it keeps prices lower for everyone. That is the legacy this settlement would dismantle.

 

There’s a clear warning just to the south in Maryland, where a similar decision was made to eliminate retail choice. While that decision was made by the legislature rather than by a settlement agreement, the result is effectively the same: customers lost options.

 

According to the Energy Information Administration, January electric rates in Maryland rose a modest 4.3% year-over-year in 2025. In January 2026 – after a year of virtually no competitive suppliers operating in the state – Maryland residential electric rates rose 13% year-over-year. In the absence of competitive supply, among other factors, bills grew three times faster.

 

While Pennsylvania exports a tremendous amount of electricity to Maryland, we cannot afford to import its bad energy policies.

 

Just last week, the PUC unanimously approved the creation of a Ratemaking Working

Group, whose aim is to review the profits utilities make through rate decisions and improve transparency when it comes to customers’ electric utility bills.

 

The PUC is right to do so. Customers are being squeezed from all sides, and if they are being asked to pay more for electricity, they deserve to understand why. Greater transparency will improve customer understanding and help to hold monopoly utilities accountable.

 

It’s difficult to imagine a less transparent process than the First Energy proposal before the PUC right now. Until the working group is able to thoroughly review this process, the PUC should reject any backdoor attempt to impact electricity customers’ choices in Pennsylvania.

 

The recommendation to approve this settlement would immediately dismantle Pennsylvania’s competitive retail electricity market for First Energy residential customers and make Pennsylvania less affordable for residents, less desirable for businesses, and less competitive for investment.

 

The PUC should protect choices for Pennsylvania consumers — not prioritize the $26-billion utility company — and reject this terrible plan as starkly unlawful.

 

James H. Cawley is a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

 

This originally appeared on PennLIve on September 21, 2026.

 

The views presented here are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Susquehanna Valley Center for Public Policy.

 

Nothing contained here should be considered as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any legislation.