During the 2026 legislative session, there was more conversation and focus than usual on utility affordability, especially energy affordability. Unfortunately, little was actually accomplished to address this pressing issue. The four bills directly related to energy that passed this spring will do the following:
- Expand the membership of the Public Service Commission (PSC) from 3 to 5 commissioners; adjust required qualifications for commissioners; require that no more than 3 commissioners be members of the same political party; limits commissioners to 3 terms (each term is 4 years); (SB 8)
- Create a pilot program to fund nuclear energy development; (SB 57)
- Permit the PSC to allow, upon the request of an electric utility, an extension of the period for recovery of an electric utility’s fuel adjustment costs to reduce volatility for consumers and encourage stability in rates; (SB 172)
- Restores the ability of a utility to request that the PSC approve costs associated with decommissioning and asset and depreciation expenses before the commission actually approves the asset for decommissioning. These costs are then paid by customers during the useful life of the asset rather than after it is retired. (HB 398)
In summary, one of the four bills that passed, SB 172, simply confirmed existing authority and effectively will result in no meaningful changes. HB 398 restores regulatory provisions on recovery of decommissioning costs, thus not having much new impact on the challenge of affordable energy. The other two will expand the PSC and fund nuclear energy. Nuclear energy, however, is not an option that ranks highly with regard to affordability. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis consistently reports nuclear energy as expensive, risky, and slow to build.
There were many missed opportunities at the legislature to improve energy affordability and customer protections. Legislators failed to move forward legislation that would have provided protections from energy disconnections during extreme temperatures (HB 377; SB 88). The bills did not even receive a committee hearing. They also failed to pass legislation that would have improved regulations on data centers and helped ensure that residential customers do not bear the costs associated with the energy infrastructure and capacity required to serve these data centers (HB 593; HB 544). They also failed to pass legislation that would require the PSC to work with utilities and stakeholders to examine and make recommendations for how to improve energy affordability for low and fixed-income households (SJR 75). Unfortunately, house leadership was swayed by utility protests and did not bring the legislation to a vote on the house floor. Last, in spite of Governor Beshear’s request that the legislature include $75 million in the state budget to support a utility bill customer assistance program, the legislature allocated no funding to this cause.
We want to thank all of you who responded to our requests to take action. Thanks to you, we prevented a harmful provision from passing that would have prevented us and other consumer advocates from participating in rate cases before the PSC. That was a huge win. We appreciate your support and will continue to work in all the ways that we can to address unaffordable energy bills – at the PSC, at the legislature, and in the community. Please reach out with any questions about our utility affordability program work.
