Javier Palma/Floodlight

This story was reported by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

It was 2:30 in the morning on November 6, 2014, when flames engulfed the New Orleans home of political consultant Mario Zervigon. Someone had lit his cars on fire, and the flames spread to his house. Zervigon and his family barely made it out of the three-unit building alive. Multiple cats didn’t.

Law enforcement deemed it arson and investigated whether the fire was related to Zerivigon’s campaign work. (They would ultimately close the case without naming a suspect.) The night before, Zervigon had celebrated the primary election victory of one of his clients for a seat on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission (PSC), a down-ballot position with vast power over the state’s oil, gas, and utility companies.

The candidate, Forest Bradley-Wright, was running as a Republican on a reform platform. He had rejected donations from companies the PSC oversees—a rarity in Louisiana. But the firebombing rattled his campaign. Zervigon took a leave of absence, Bradley-Wright’s fundraising flagged, and another candidate, who had received generous support from the companies in question, eked out a 1.6 percent win in the general election.

Bradley-Wright now says he believes the firebombing was an act of “political terrorism” meant “to intimidate or at least cripple my campaign.” He argues the incident is worth revisiting because it shows just how high the stakes can get in the election of regulators charged with making, in some cases, billion-dollar decisions and shaping a state’s energy policies.

“Public utility commissions—especially in the context of climate change—are really important institutions that most people aren’t even aware exist,” said Jared Heern, a Brown University researcher who studies the relationship between the commissions and the industries they regulate.

But fossil fuel companies and electric utilities, and their lawyers and consultants, are well aware of their importance.

A new Floodlight analysis of campaign finance data in nine of the 10 states that elect their commissioners found that more than a third of their campaign contributions of $250 and up came from fossil fuel and electric utility interests—more than $13.5 million in all. The analysis covered contributions to the 54 commissioners elected in the 10 years ending on December 31, 2023.

On Tuesday, voters will choose among 33 candidates vying for utility commission seats in eight of those states.

The states examined were Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Nebraska, which elects its commissioners but has no private electric utilities, was excluded. (In the remaining 40 states, utility regulators are appointed by governors and/or legislative leaders.)

Topping the influence list is Alabama, where commissioners get almost 55 percent of their financial support from fossil fuel and utility interests. Louisiana is second, with nearly 43 percent. Overall, those sources contribute more than twice as much as the renewables industry does to elect commissioners they believe will be friendly to their interests. The renewables donations accounted for only $5.1 million, or 13 percent, of the roughly $39 million analyzed.

These findings suggest that the electoral influence of fossil fuel and utility contributors may be interfering with some states’ ability to decarbonize, with consequences for consumers and the environment alike.

Indeed, a number of the states are located in the sun belt, making them ideal for solar energy development, yet their commissioners’ decisions have ensured that only a tiny fraction of their power mix comes from the sun. In some cases, commissioners appear openly hostile to the adoption of renewables, far more of which will be needed to limit the catastrophic effects of climate change.

This failure to adapt is a bad deal for homeowners and businesses. Residential energy bills in Alabama, for example, exceed the national average by $32 a month, and bills in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi have increased faster than the national average over the past five years, according to data from Findenergy.com. This year in Arizona, power bills spiked amid the state’s hottest summer on record. And in Oklahoma, commissioners approved so many fracking applications that the state briefly led the country in earthquakes.

“It's kind of ludicrous on its face,” said journalist David Roberts, who hosts an energy policy podcast called Volts, “that commercial entities directly regulated by these people are allowed to give these people money.”

In fact, laws in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi prohibit regulated utilities from making direct campaign contributions to commissioners. But in all of those states, Floodlight’s analysis found, contractors, attorneys, or political action committees closely aligned with the utilities keep the money flowing. “(When) the........

© Mother Jones