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Do you feel gouged?  Why does your utility bill seem to be skyrocketing all of a sudden? The knee-jerk answer is ‘Well, the cost of stuff keeps going up” or “It’s inflation,” or how about this one: "Utility companies are getting rich on the back of us poor people.”

When you call the utility companies, they usually say: 😏 “You used more power this month.”

Behind the numbers sit deliberate policy choices and structural gimmicks that lock in higher rates. Nowhere is this clearer than in New York, where electricity costs rank the third-highest in the nation, and ordinary households have watched their bills surge.

• One of the most effective tricks is to shut down reliable, low-cost generation and then pretend the resulting price spike is unavoidable.

Indian Point supplied roughly a quarter of the Hudson Valley’s power until it was closed in 2021. Since then, electricity costs in the region have jumped about 58 percent. Transmission infrastructure already exists at the site and sits idle, yet proposals to reopen or rebuild face fierce resistance. The result is predictable: scarcer supply meets the same demand, and rates rise. When politicians call the plant “broken and decrepit” while offering only vague talk of “holding monopolies accountable” and “investing in natural resources,” they are protecting the higher-cost status quo green energy source they control.

• A second hidden mechanism is the quiet transfer of green-energy costs onto ratepayers.

Mandates, subsidies, and renewable portfolio standards do not appear as a separate line item labeled “climate policy surcharge.” Instead, they are folded into base rates, capacity charges, and system benefit fees. Consumers see the total and blame the utility, not the regulators and legislators who required expensive intermittent sources while blocking pipelines and nuclear capacity. Groups that celebrate these policies as climate victories rarely advertise the household bill impact.

• A third trick is the monopoly structure itself. Utilities operate under regulatory regimes that guarantee recovery of approved costs plus a return.

When the Public Service Commission green-lights rate hikes driven by policy decisions made in Albany, the company collects. Political rhetoric about “capping CEO bonuses” or “tying rates to better service” sounds tough but rarely forces the structural changes—more generation, more competition, fewer mandates—that would actually lower prices. The same voices that reject proven baseload power often receive endorsements from environmental organizations whose priorities treat higher energy costs as an acceptable feature rather than a problem.

The practical effect is a system designed to keep bills elevated. Reliable nuclear and natural gas face political obstacles. Intermittent renewables require backup and transmission upgrades whose costs land on monthly statements. Rate cases serve as the mechanism that translates policy goals into consumer pain. Voters are told the solution is more of the same policies that produced the problem.

Lower bills require more generation from sources that actually work when the wind is calm, and the sun is down. Keeping existing nuclear sites offline and blocking new capacity is not an accident of market forces. It is a choice. Until that choice is reversed, the “tricks” that keep utility bills high will remain firmly in place—and households will keep paying for them.

What do you think? Tell all of us in the comment section below.