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Americans electricity bills tend to tick up each year in line with inflation. But upgrades to electric wires, reinforcing and protecting power lines from severe weather, and changing fuel costs among other factors are sending rates soaring. High electricity consumption from data centers and other sources of rising demand will likely cause further increases in the near future. The impact on consumers is particularly dramatic in Pennsylvania, where rate hikes are widespread. For example, the monthly bill for a PECO residential customer who uses 700 kilowatt hours of electricity monthly increased 10% or US$13.58 in 2025. These bills will go up another $2.70 each month in 2026. Retail price adjustments approved by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission for most electric distribution utilities effective December 2024 led to higher bills for many customers across the state. In some parts of Pennsylvania, the estimated increases topped an estimated 30%. As professors who work in the areas of energy law and electricity markets, we know electricity costs are rising in many parts of the U.S. But Pennsylvania faces distinct challenges related to its electric grid the maze of wires and generators that drive both the growing demand for electricity and the limited supply. PJM and the electric grid Pennsylvania power plants produce a lot of electricity. In fact, the Keystone State is the the largest exporter of electricity in the U.S. and has been for many years. But the electricity Pennsylvania produces doesnt always stay in state. Thats because Pennsylvanias electric grid is managed by a company called PJM. PJM coordinates the flow of electricity through all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, and it ensures the wholesale electricity transmission system operates reliably and safely. Pennsylvania electric utilities, such as PECO or Duquesne Light, then distribute this wholesale electricity to retail customers, including homeowners and renters. PJM requires the utilities to ensure ahead of time that they can meet their customers future electricity demands, including during heat waves and winter storms. This requirement is met using a market called a capacity auction, in which electricity suppliers bid to provide physical infrastructure that will generate electricity in the future. The prices at the 2025-2026 PJM capacity auction were more than 800% higher than the previous year, in part due to the growing demand for electricity within PJM. This amounts to tens of billions of dollars in extra costs. Power plants in Pennsylvania cant simply stop exporting electricity and supply more in-state power because they dispatch their power into the regional grid operated by PJM, and the flow of electricity is dictated by the physical structure of this grid. Soaring demand from data centers U.S. electricity demand rose 3% in 2024 and is expected to rise even more rapidly in the coming years. Much of this new demand comes from data centers, which support everything from AI applications and data storage think of the thousands of emails and files backed up on our computers to sports betting, online retailers such as Amazon, and national security applications such as the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Pennsylvania is on the same electric grid as Virginia, which hosts about a quarter of all data center capacity in the Americas. New data centers are also being built in Pennsylvania. Rising demand is also driven by the increase in electric vehicles and the replacement of gas- and oil-based furnaces with electric heat pumps. These replacements are ultimately more energy efficient but require electricity. Bottlenecks in supply The increase in electricity demand within PJM is happening at the same time that supply is shrinking. Many old generating plants in the PJM grid are retiring as they near the end of their useful lives and become less profitable for plant operators, particularly as natural gas and solar ecome more affordable. Some of these older power plants also emit a lot of pollution and are costly to retrofit to meet current pollution limits. Beyond the challenge of plant retirements, PJM has been slow to allow hundreds of new proposed power plants most of them solar- and battery-based to connect to transmission lines. This long interconnection queue prevents new, needed generation from coming online. This is happening even though companies are eager and ready to build more generation and battery storage. Aging infrastructure and growing weather extremes One of the primary recent drivers of high consumer electric bills is that the utilities have been slow to upgrade their aging wires. Many have recently made major investments in new infrastructure and in some cases are burying or strengthening wires to protect them from increasingly extreme weather. Electricity customers are footing the bill for this work. Response from policymakers In response to rising electricity prices, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro filed a legal complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission against PJM in December 2024. This complaint blamed PJMs capacity auction design for creating unnecessary costs for consumers. According to the settlement reached after the complaint, PJMs price caps will be 35% lower at the next major capacity auction. This reduction in wholesale prices could limit retail price increases. But this is at best a temporary fix. It doesnt address the increasing demand, aging power infrastructure battered by extreme weather, or transmission bottleneck. In order for Pennsylvania residents to see lower electric bills anytime soon, more changes are needed. For example, many experts previously observed that PJM needs to fix the queue and get online the many power plants that are ready to build and just waiting for a transmission interconnection. While PJM has reformed its queue process, the queue is still long. New power plants are not going up fast enough, in part due to additional challenges such as local opposition and supply chain and financing issues. Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Hannah Wiseman is a professor of law at Penn State. Seth Blumsack is a professor of energy and environmental economics and international affairs at Penn State. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
The Justice Department announced plans Wednesday to abandon lawsuits against police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, a reversal of Biden-era initiatives to reform policing in two cities that sparked a national reckoning around racial justice. The Civil Rights Division will be taking all necessary steps to dismiss the Louisville and Minneapolis lawsuits with prejudice, to close the underlying investigations into the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments, and to retract the Biden administrations findings of constitutional violations, the Justice Department said in a press release. The decision to back away from police reform comes just days before the five-year anniversary of George Floyds death. Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2021. The Justice Department also plans to throw out any findings of constitutional violations and close ongoing investigations into police departments in Phoenix; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis; Oklahoma City; and the state of Louisiana. Reversing Bidens planned policing reforms Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, characterized the Biden administrations lawsuits as part of an anti-police agenda. Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Divisions failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees, Dhillon said. The policy shift signals an aggressive return to the first Trump administrations disinterest in police oversight and a likely rollback of other federal reforms put in place over the last four years. In its waning days, the Biden administration rushed to finalize a Justice Department deal for police oversight in Minneapolis, securing unanimous approval from the Minneapolis City Council in early January. The agreement, known as a consent decree, was initiated in 2023 after a damning Justice Department report accused the Minneapolis Police Department of racial discrimination, First Amendment violations, and the unlawful use of deadly force. In both Minneapolis and Louisville, consent decrees still await a federal judges approval. A powerful tool for police accountability Consent decrees are one of the federal governments most powerful tools for holding police departments accountable for civil rights violations, dangerous policies, and the wrongful use of deadly force. The Department of Justice regularly pursues these long-term road maps for reform with law enforcement agencies facing federal lawsuits, creating a framework for oversight that can endure until a judge decides that its requirements have been met. During the the Obama administration, 15 law enforcement agencies entered into consent decrees with the Justice Department to resolve lawsuits around policingup from just three during the Bush era. During Trumps first term, the Justice Department introduced only one new investigation of its own and even made efforts to stall out planned reforms in Baltimore, though it ultimately failed. Most notably, Trumps then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions narrowed the scope of consent decrees, introducing new requirements for sunset dates and limiting the reforms they could require. Under Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland rescinded those sweeping Trump-era changes to consent reforms in 2021, clearing a path for the Justice Department to again leverage the powerful agreements when investigating law enforcement misdeeds and civil rights abuses. Trumps early agenda makes it clear that he plans to leave police departments to their own devices in the coming years. That hands-off approach puts the fate of some cities planned police reforms up in the air or, like much of Trumps agenda, up to the courts.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Senate unanimously passed the “No Tax on Tips Act” on Tuesday, a bill that would eliminate federal taxes on tips and that President Donald Trump made a campaign promise when running for reelection. It now goes to the House for a vote. If passed, the legislation would create a new tax deduction of up to $25,000 on income made from tips. The legislation comes as many Americans are feeling an added economic burden in the face of inflation, higher prices, and skyrocketing living costs. Here’s what you need to know. What is the No Tax on Tips Act? Bill S. 129, or the No Tax on Tips Act, creates a federal income tax deduction of up to $25,000 a year for certain types of cash tips for eligible employees. (These are cash tips that workers report to employers for withholdings on payroll taxes.) Who is eligible for for the tax break? The deduction applies to employees who earn up to $160,000 in 2025; that amount will likely increase with inflation in the years ahead and applies to tips received by an individual . . . in an occupation which traditionally and customarily received tips on or before December 31, 2023,” including tips via cash, credit and debit card, and check, according to The Washington Post. Who supports the bill? Both Republicans and Democrats support the bill. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas introduced it back in January. Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada brought the bill to the Senate floor, where it passed with unanimous consent, which usually happens with more routine legislative matters. Rosen, along with Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, also of Nevada, cosponsored the legislation. Who championed the No Tax on Tips Act? During the 2024 presidential election, both candidates Trump and Harris supported versions of the idea, with Trump making it a campaign promise during a June 2024 rally in Nevada, a state where 25% of workers rely on tips. According to The Hill, it was one way Trump set out to court working-class voters. What do critics say about the No Tax on Tips Act? The National Restaurant Association supports the bill; however, critics say eliminating taxes on tips is an empty win for many hourly workers who don’t make enough to pay federal income taxes. Critics also say it keeps workers at a lower overall pay rate, as opposed to creating a higher minimum wage. What happens next? The bill now heads to the House of Representatives for a vote. A version of No Tax on Tips is also included in Trump’s giant tax and immigration bill, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. On the Senate floor, Cruz said he was confident the bill would eventually pass either way.
Category:
E-Commerce
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