A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers is supporting a plan to quickly lower electric bills by ending the state’s 5.9% tax on electricity sales.<\/p>\n
Support for the proposal has widened as utility costs climb, but the measure would also strip $1.7 billion from the state budget, even as officials are already trying to match spending to available revenue.<\/p>\n
What’s happening?<\/p>\n
Supporters are promoting the measure as Pennsylvania’s biggest-ever tax cut, and it would end the state electricity tax for households, businesses, and nonprofits.<\/p>\n
Once enacted, the tax change would take effect immediately, and utilities that fail to pass the savings on to customers could be fined.<\/p>\n
That effort is unfolding amid steep increases in electricity costs statewide.<\/p>\n
As reported by Spotlight PA<\/a>, data compiled by Heatmap News and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show the average bill has risen by more than 60% over the past five years.<\/p>\n After the tax cut was added, Republicans joined in a unanimous House vote for the broader bill. The Senate, meanwhile, approved the tax cut as part of a separate package.<\/p>\n Speed is a key selling point for backers. State Representative Carl Walker Metzgar, a Somerset Republican who introduced the amendment, said, “There is no other way for the legislature to lower people’s electric bill immediately.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro has backed a different section of the House bill, the one aimed at limiting utility profits, though his office did not say whether he supports the tax cut.<\/p>\n Why does it matter?<\/p>\n Lower electricity taxes could mean smaller monthly bills at a time when many households are already dealing with high housing, grocery, and transportation costs.<\/p>\n That relief may matter even more as a mix of pressures continues to drive power prices upward, including rising demand from data centers and delays in bringing new electricity generation online.<\/p>\n Any direct cut to utility bills would provide near-term breathing room for families trying to cover summer cooling costs and other essentials.<\/p>\n The proposal would lower state revenue by about $1.7 billion in the next fiscal year, and lawmakers have not laid out exactly how they would replace that money.<\/p>\n Even before the proposal, Pennsylvania was already under pressure to rely more heavily on reserves as spending outpaced available revenue.<\/p>\n That has led some lawmakers to warn that savings on electric bills now could lead to more difficult budget decisions later.<\/p>\n State Senator Lindsey Williams, a Democrat from Allegheny, criticized the proposal during debate, asking, “What taxes will go up to cover it? What services will be cut?”<\/p>\n What’s being done?<\/p>\n Alongside the tax cut, lawmakers are also pursuing a broader attempt to reduce utility costs by targeting profits.<\/p>\n The original House bill was introduced by state Representative Elizabeth Fiedler, a Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the House Energy Committee, and would cap what investor-owned utilities can earn through either a formula linked to U.S. Treasury bond yields or a competitive bidding process.<\/p>\n Backers argue that the method could produce larger savings over time.<\/p>\n Patrick Cicero, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project and a former state consumer advocate, said the idea is meant to be “more granular and precise” in setting profits.<\/p>\n “Why approximate when we don’t have to?” he said.<\/p>\n Critics, though, describe the proposal as untested and potentially risky.<\/p>\n Andrew Tubbs, president and CEO of the Energy Association of Pennsylvania, said that “trying to undo a century’s worth of process on the fly is not sound energy policy.”<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers is supporting a plan to quickly lower electric bills by ending the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101803,32296,67181,33410,14530,28,30,29,101801,101802,28290,89762],"class_list":["post-236325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-carl-walker-metzgar","tag-electric-bill","tag-electric-bills","tag-house-bill","tag-massachusetts-institute-of-technology","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state-revenue","tag-tax-change","tag-tax-cut","tag-utility-costs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236325","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=236325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}