Recently, I wrote that U.S. utilities have requested about $18.6 billion in electric and gas rate increases during the first half of 2026.
So I was pleased to see that Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown is arguing against Puget Sound Energy’s, or PSE, steep price hikes for gas and electric service.
I live in Washington state in an area where PSE, an investor-owned utility, provides electricity to customers. When I wrote a blog for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I often wrote about PSE’s rate increases.
In testimony filed Tuesday with the Utilities and Transportation Commission, or UTC, the Attorney General’s Office is challenging PSE’s proposal to increase customer electric rates by 29 percent and gas rates by 20 percent over the next three years. The office argues that these increases are excessive and unreasonable.
“We need to fight to keep Washington affordable for everyone,” Brown said in a statement. “PSE should only raise prices on consumers when necessary and reasonable, and we do not think that is the case here.”
Brown’s office offers a different plan. By lowering PSE’s return on equity to the actual cost of capital, asking shareholders to pay their fair share of expenses such as insurance, investor relations, and executive compensation costs, and by demanding PSE more accurately estimate future costs, the office says PSE could save customers as much as $695 million in 2027 alone.
Brown said PSE’s proposed increases come on top of the large rate increases PSE customers have already experienced: between 2020 and 2025, PSE’s electric rates nearly doubled.
In 2025, PSE paid $62.9 million in dividends to their shareholders. In 2024, it was $175.9 million in dividends. On average, 12 percent of customers’ electric bills and 11 percent of their gas bills go to paying investors rather than for services.
PSE also spends customer money on projects that aren’t related to providing services. The Attorney General’s Office argues that spending on these items should come out of the pot of money PSE uses to pay shareholder dividends, rather than money customers pay as part of their electric and gas rates:
- Increasing the pay of executives. PSE’s CEO received total compensation of $6.4 million in 2024. PSE’s CEO was paid 55 times more than the median PSE employee last year.
- Marketing. PSE spends customer money to advertise itself to its own customers, who have no choice about their electric or gas service.
- Lobbying elected officials. PSE also spends customer money to lobby Washington state government.
PSE’s requested rate increase would guarantee PSE a profit margin of 10.8 percent over the next four years. Their current profit margin is 9.9 percent. The Attorney General’s Office instead urges the UTC to support a lower profit margin of 8.17 percent.
In addition to its proposed rate increase, PSE also wants to shift all the risk for power market volatility onto customers, he said. Currently, when power is more expensive than PSE expects, customers and the company share that unexpected cost. Under PSE’s proposal, customers would instead foot the bill for 100 percent of higher power costs from events such as the Iran War. These costs would be in addition to the rate increases over the next three years. PSE hasn’t provided any estimates of how much this change would cost customers, he said.
If your attorney general taking action against utility increases? The National Association of Attorneys General has a listing of the attorney general in each state. You can check to see what action on utility rates your attorney general is taking, if any.
