As Americans recover from the recent winter storms, many are also bracing for an additional onslaught when they get their monthly electric bill. Retail electric prices are up in recent years, and while this can be attributed to everything from the war in Ukraine to broader inflationary trends, a recent article in The New York Times claims to have identified the real culprit: deregulation! According to the Times, "residents living in a deregulated market pay $40 more per month for electricity than those in the states that let individual utilities control most or all parts of the grid." The Times notes that so-called deregulated states tend to spend more on transmission lines and suggests that this—along with the way electric market auctions are structured and, of course, "energy company profits"—accounts for the higher prices.
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