Organizations claim money is used to advocate for 'anti-environment' policies

More than 300 activist groups are advocating for an end to accounting practices that they say allow electric and gas utilities to finance "anti-environment" trade associations.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced in December it would review rules regarding the dues and other payments energy utilities send to industry associations. The decision came after months of public pressure from environmental organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, which argues ratepayers are being asked to bankroll association advocacy efforts that undermine climate change regulation and other environmental policies.

In a Feb. 22 letter to FERC, the groups urged the commission to take a hardline stance against the alleged practice.

"Ratepayers are already saddled with unaffordable utility bills, climate-fueled disasters and pollution," Gaby Sarri-Tobar, an energy justice campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "It's despicable that utilities also use customers' money to prop up trade groups that are stifling the renewable energy transition."

Federal rules currently bar regulated utilities from passing on the costs of political activities to ratepayers, including association lobbying. Still, associations do more than just advocacy, so regulators let utilities calculate how much of their association dues can be recovered through rates charged to customers. The letter's signatories want all association dues to be non-recoverable.

Associations that count utilities among their memberships have pushed back against that suggestion in the past. The Edison Electric Institute, Nuclear Energy Institute and American Gas Association have all argued there is no reason to change the accounting methods utilities use to separate advocacy from other association activities.

FERC is currently taking public comment on the review.