Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
State public utility regulation in the energy sector is undergoing a rapid transformation driven by public and private investment in clean energy deployment, the corresponding threat to incumbent fossil fuel interests, and growing demands for energy justice. This transformation will impact many aspects of societal well-being—from energy insecurity in disadvantaged communities to dramatic shifts in energy-sector employment—so it is unsurprising that public utility commissions would engage with social policy concerns. However, for decades, state courts and utility stakeholders have admonished commissions that they are economic regulators and that their jurisdiction does not include social policy. This Article shows that state public utility commissions are—and have always been—social policymakers as part of their statutory mandate to regulate in the public interest, limit monopoly power in the energy sector, and set just and reasonable utility rates.
We demonstrate the central role of social policy in state public utility regulation through an analysis of state proceedings over several decades. These proceedings include (1) longstanding contestations over low-income rates and economic development rates, (2) more recent efforts to address energy justice concerns, and (3) actions designed to keep aging coal plants open to preserve local jobs and tax revenues.
The theoretical, doctrinal, and process implications of reckoning with social policy in utility regulation are potentially far-reaching. For theory, our evaluation supports the contemporary scholarly project to reinvigorate public utility regulation for network and infrastructure industries now being studied under the banner of “networks, platforms, and utilities,” or “NPUs.” For doctrine, our account provides a basis for state courts to give commissions more discretion to expressly incorporate social policy into their decisions and allow state legislatures, rather than courts, to limit that discretion. As for process, our analysis allows advocates to more fully embrace state utility regulation as a social policy process that unfolds as a conversation between regulated parties, other stakeholders, utility commissioners, legislators, and courts. In this conversation, utility commissions offer a critical forum for public deliberation, evidence gathering, and negotiation, making them essential venues for networks of stakeholders to grapple with the complexity of social policy decisions that touch the energy sector.
Recommended Citation
Klass, Alexandra and Gabriel Chan. "Reckoning with Social Policy in Utility Regulation." Boston University Law Review 105, no. 6 (2025): 1871-1932.
Included in
Energy and Utilities Law Commons, Energy Policy Commons, Environmental Law Commons, Environmental Policy Commons, State and Local Government Law Commons
Comments
Originally published as Klass, Alexandra and Gabriel Chan. "Reckoning with Social Policy in Utility Regulation." Boston University Law Review 105, no. 6 (2025): 1871-1932.