What’s a Utility to Do When Everyone Is Mad at Them?

Utilities sit at an uneasy intersection between private company and public service. Typically, it's quite a profitable place to be: Investor-owned utilities get to be monopolies in order to provide electric service in a particular geography and then charge government-approved rates. But that also places them on the front lines of the consumer and political backlash to rising electricity prices. Those prices are likely to continue to rise. The energy advocacy group PowerLines estimates that in 2025, electric and gas utilities requested some $31 billion worth of rate hikes. Spending on that scale translates into higher rates for consumers as utilities pass along their development costs to their rate base.

The material facts and mechanics are stark. S&P; Global projects that electric and gas utilities will undertake $1.3 trillion in capital expenditures through 2030. That spending is the engine behind the rate increases, as utilities recover their development costs from their rate base. Utility executives are as much politicians as they are operators, as their entire corporate existence depends on a government relationship. So it was no surprise that Calvin Butler, chief executive of Exelon, the utility holding company with around 11 million customers spanning from the Chicago area to the Atlantic Seaboard, was speaking at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly hosted by the foreign policy think tank the Atlantic Council on the same agenda as the foreign ministers of Spain and Romania and the prime minister of Syria.

The evidence and source context come from a single Heatmap News report published on September 22, 2026, which was read in full. The report describes how utilities' relative political weakness is one reason why a permitting reform deal might pass in Congress. One energy industry figure following the negotiations told Heatmap News, "They are gonna get smoked in the Senate permitting deal." When asked why utilities aren't opposing a deal, the insider said, "They need too much from [the Department of Energy] the next few years. They can't oppose this." An Edison Electric Institute spokesperson told Heatmap News that "Rapid deployment of new energy infrastructure is essential to meeting growing electricity demand and ensuring customers have access to reliable, affordable power. Yet outdated federal permitting and planning processes too often slow the development of critical projects." Butler himself did not weigh in on permitting reform, but he was straightforward about the importance of maintaining good community and political relationships in the face of rising prices: "We have to be connected to talk about siting of transmission, distribution lines, or substations. It's what we do. I always say this: All politics is local."

The sector and market implications are significant. An effective reform to transmission and permitting—especially to interregional transmission planning—could threaten utilities' spending on serving their own individual territories. That is a direct challenge to the monopoly model that underpins investor-owned utility profitability. The Edison Electric Institute has been publicly supportive of a permitting deal since last year, but the insider account suggests that support is born of necessity rather than enthusiasm. Utilities need too much from the Department of Energy over the next few years to oppose a deal, even one that could undermine their territorial spending advantages. This dynamic places utilities in a bind: they face consumer and political backlash over rising rates, yet they also face a permitting reform process that could erode their control over transmission planning.

The limitations of this analysis are clear. The dossier is based on a single source read in full, and several material claims are not corroborated by additional reporting. The $31 billion rate hike figure comes from PowerLines, an energy advocacy group, and is not independently verified in the source. The $1.3 trillion capital expenditure projection comes from S&P; Global, but the source does not provide the underlying methodology. The insider quotes about utilities getting "smoked" in the Senate permitting deal are attributed to an unnamed energy industry figure, and the source does not provide additional confirmation. What to watch: whether the permitting reform deal actually passes, whether utilities publicly oppose it or remain quiet, and whether the $31 billion in rate hike requests translates into actual approved increases. The political pressure on utilities is unlikely to ease as long as capital expenditures continue to rise and consumers continue to see higher bills.