Opponents of CPS Energy’s latest rate increase are asking the San Antonio City Council to hit pause on approving it until the utility’s latest rate case is thoroughly evaluated by a “consumer advocate” who represents the interests of ratepayers.
With the dissolution of CPS Energy’s rate advisory committee earlier this year, local climate activists with the Climate Action SA coalition say they are concerned utility ratepayers are not being fairly represented as the utility seeks to increase the base rate customers pay by 4.25%, effective early next year.
Officials of the municipally owned utility said the estimated $85 million in revenue the rate increase would generate is needed to replace aging infrastructure and keep pace with San Antonio’s growth. CPS Energy’s board of trustees is scheduled to vote on the rate increase Dec. 4, which would set up a City Council vote on Dec. 7. If approved, the rate increase would go into effect early in 2024.
“We’re asking the San Antonio City Council not to approve the rate hike increase and to approve a consumer advocate who actually has the interests of San Antonio’s working-class families in mind,” said Alex Birnel, the director of advocacy for MOVE Texas, a grassroots group focused on growing young voter turnout across the state.
Such a consumer advocate would do a deep dive and evaluate CPS Energy’s rate case from the point of view of CPS Energy’s ratepayers, said DeeDee Belmares, a clean energy advocate with Public Citizen’s Texas office and former member of the rate advisory committee. Belmares has become a champion for the idea, which has since become a central part of the discussion surrounding the proposed rate hike.
While utility officials said they would be open to working with a consumer advocate, the trustees questioned the need for one before next month’s votes, since residents had been informed over the past two years that this rate increase was coming.
When CPS Energy’s trustees and the City Council last approved a rate increase in January 2022, the utility had not increased its rates in eight years. This increase was a part of a larger multi-year plan under which the utility would seek rate increases it says it needs across multiple years rather than proposing a double-digit rate increase all at once.
If the new base rate is approved, the average CPS Energy residential customer with a monthly bill of $181.10 would see their bill increase by about $4.45 per month starting in March 2024.
“The reality is if you ask any member of the public at any point, ‘Would you like to raise your rates?’ the answer is going to be ‘no,'” said Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who serves as one of the five CPS Energy trustees in his official capacity. “I will continue to advocate [for ratepayers] to the extent that we can, and I think we’re doing a good job of that.”
The end of the RAC
CPS Energy announced its proposed rate increase a little more than three months after it retired the rate advisory committee formed two years earlier to examine the utility’s rate structure and generation portfolio.
CPS Energy wants to revamp its Citizens Advisory Committee to help fill in any gaps left by the rate advisory committee’s conclusion, Chief Strategy Officer Elaina Ball told trustees Monday. The Citizens Advisory Committee is a 15-member volunteer group that meets monthly to discuss the utility’s operations with the intent of helping CPS Energy “tell the CPS Energy story” to the public.
However, opponents of the rate increase feel the rate advisory committee was the better body for gathering input specifically about rate cases and rate structure. Diana Lopez, executive director of the Southwest Workers Union, said the dissolution of the rate advisory committee felt like a “red flag.”
“We’d been supporting and keeping track of the rate advisory committee,” Lopez said . “Our main concern is that [CPS Energy is] trying to pass this vote without fully developing a public process for [the rate increase], and is actually dissolving good structures where these conversations should have happened.”
CPS Energy officials argue however they have always been open to taking input from ratepayers in this rate case.
The utility has been conducting public meetings, accepting written comments and listening to public comments given during board meetings and through calls or emails to the trustees, said Melissa Sorola, vice president of corporate communications and marketing.
CPS Energy officials were set to meet Wednesday night and again on Nov. 20 with District 7 residents to answer questions about the proposed increase.
The utility instituted a small ad hoc committee, which included Belmares, that met with trustees several times regarding the proposed rate hike, Ball said. However, the group is more about how CPS Energy is communicating the rate increase than the actual increase itself, she told trustees.
“This working group is yet another another group that has been providing us feedback,” she said. “We want active and thorough and really challenging engagement from all of our stakeholders.”
Support from City Council
Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) has met with opponents to the rate increase several times and filed a policy proposal with the city clerk’s office on Nov. 9 to hire a consumer advocate. Councilwomen Phyllis Viagran (D3), Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), Teri Castillo (D5) and Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) also signed onto McKee-Rodriguez’s policy memo.
“I would personally feel much more comfortable voting on something like this if CPS [Energy] or the city hired a residential consumer advocate who can make a human, environmental and compassionate request for a rate increase — someone whose role is to advocate for our most vulnerable, not those of corporate interests,” McKee-Rodriguez said during a City Council briefing last week.
Belmares, Lopez and Birnel agreed and said they hope to see the votes halted until there has been a better public process.
“It’s a public utility — it’s the largest municipally owned utility in the country,” Birnel said. “And we think it’s public ownership should mean that it has some accountability and has some democracy.”
CPS Energy is a financial supporter of the San Antonio Report. For a full list of business members, click here.
