{"id":160460,"date":"2026-04-08T14:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/160460\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:19:13","slug":"pa-gov-shapiro-peco-rate-hike-request-pure-greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/160460\/","title":{"rendered":"PA Gov. Shapiro: PECO rate hike request \u2018pure greed\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is lashing out at PECO<\/a> on social media for proposing new rate hikes in the face of record profits.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year PECO raised prices on Pennsylvanians and made an obscene $814 million in profit,\u201d Shapiro wrote on X on Friday.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThey could have used that money to offset people\u2019s costs \u2014 instead they passed it onto shareholders,\u201d he continued. \u201cNow they want to jack up prices even more. It\u2019s pure greed, and I\u2019ll do everything I can to stop it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In an email, the governor\u2019s office said he \u201cbelieves PECO should withdraw their rate case immediately. If they do not reconsider, the Governor will use all means at his disposal to prevent PECO from raising rates on hardworking Pennsylvanians.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what Shapiro can or will do to prevent the rate hikes. WHYY News has reached out to PECO seeking a response to the governor\u2019s office\u2019s statement.\n<\/p>\n

PECO\u2019s 2025 net profits, as reported by WHYY News,<\/a> came after the utility raised electricity rates for customers by 10% in 2025. As a result, net profits rose from $551 million in 2024 to $814 million in 2025, a nearly 50% jump.\n<\/p>\n

Calvin Butler, the president and CEO of PECO\u2019s parent company, Exelon, earned more than $15.6 million in 2025.\n<\/p>\n

The utility is seeking to raise rates again<\/a> in 2027 by 12.5% for electricity customers in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Suburban natural gas customers could also pay an increase of 11.4%. If approved by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, the increase would raise a typical electricity customer\u2019s bill by $20.08 a month and a typical gas user by $14.52 a month, according to PECO.\n<\/p>\n

PECO sought and received rate increases four times between 2015 and 2025. PECO\u2019s gas division received approvals to raise rates three times between 2020 and 2024.\n<\/p>\n

The rate of return, or return on equity, for investors that PECO is seeking with this new rate hike is 10.95%, which is much higher than the national average, said Marissa Gillett, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project and a former chair at the Connecticut Public Utility Commission where she advocated for more meaningful public input.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMy take on the governor\u2019s tweet, what caught his eye in the situation was the 10.95% [return on equity] that they\u2019ve embedded in their request,\u201d Gillett said. \u201cThat is alarmingly high.\u00a0That is almost 100 basis points higher than the national average.\u201d The national average was 9.75% in the first quarter of 2025.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33,12560,28,30,29,5206],"class_list":{"0":"post-160460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-josh-shapiro","9":"tag-peco","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","12":"tag-pennsylvania-news","13":"tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}