Utility Customer Fuel and Emissions Disclosure

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In Colorado, environmentalists are working to introduce legislation requiring utility companies to disclose fuel and emissions information to customers. The legislation would require utilities to put fuel, emissions information, and plain-language explanations of fees for fossil fuels in easy-to-read graphs on customer bills.

The proposed bill would require utilities to:

• Disclose fuel mix for the utility (i.e., the percentage of electricity derived from coal, natural gas, wind, solar, etc.)
• Include emissions for the utility, broken out by fuel type
• Use clearly-labeled color graphs and pie charts
• Include plain-language explanations of “adjustment factors” added to customer bills, such as fees for energy efficiency, renewable energy standard, and fossil fuel costs
• Include baseline comparisons of regional emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and other regulated pollutants, by fuel source
• Include baseline information to enable customers to compare household use to the national average

Groups Promoting Disclosure

• Regulatory Assistance Project - Provides research on all things about electric regulation, utilities, demand side management (energy efficiency) and resource planning (that's utility-speak for permitting new power plants, whether coal, natural gas, solar thermal, etc.). RAP is made up of retired former regulators, and the depth of knowledge is stunning. They will make free presentations to regulator commissions all over the U.S.

Resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Colorado and coal

External links

• The Regulatory Assistance Project: Information Disclosure and Labeling for Electricity Sales: Summary for State Legislatures, National Council on Competition and the Electric Industry, April 1999.
• Electric Product Disclosure: A Status Report, National Council on Competition and the Electric Industry, July 2002.

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