Florida Court Blocks Push to Break Electricity Monopolies
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Florida Electricity Deregulation Ruling highlights the Florida Supreme Court decision blocking a ballot measure on retail choice, preserving utility monopolies for NextEra and Duke Energy, while similar deregulation efforts arise in Virginia and Arizona.
What's Going On
A high court decision removing a retail choice ballot measure, keeping Florida utility monopolies intact for incumbents.
Florida Supreme Court rejected energy choice ballot language.
Ruling preserves utility monopolies like NextEra, Duke Energy.
Sponsors end petition; leaders also resist solar incentives.
Parallel moves in VA and AZ; New England ruling boosts Hydro-Quebec exports.
Florida’s top court ruled against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed customers to pick their electricity provider, even as Florida solar incentives face rejection by state leaders, threatening monopolies held by utilities such as NextEra Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp.
In a ruling Thursday, the court said the petition’s language is “misleading” and doesn’t comply with requirements to be included on the 2020 ballot, reflecting debates over electricity pricing changes at the federal level. The measure’s sponsor, Citizens for Energy Choice, said the move ends the initiative, even as electricity future advocacy continues nationwide.
“While we were confident in our plan to gather the remaining signatures required, we cannot overcome this last obstacle,” the group’s chair, Alex Patton, noting ongoing energy freedom in the South efforts, said in a statement.
The proposed measure was one of several efforts underway to deregulate U.S. electricity markets, including New York’s review of retail energy markets this year. Earlier this week, two Virginia state lawmakers unveiled a bill to allow residents and businesses to pick their electricity provider, threatening Dominion Energy Inc.’s longstanding local monopoly. And in Arizona, where Arizona Public Service Co. has long reigned, regulators are considering a similar move, while in New England Hydro-Quebec’s export bid has been energized by a court decision.
