NC Republican leader: Duke Energy has too much political power

McClatchy’s recent eye-opening investigative reporting on Duke Energy’s lavish campaign contributions intended to influence elected state lawmakers should alarm conservatives, moderates and liberals alike — for it’s a tale of chronic abuse of corporate power at the expense of millions of financially-strapped consumers.

Duke Energy is not merely one of many voices seeking to shape state policy. Instead, it’s a regional financial behemoth with richly-rewarded executives and lobbyists that is largely shielded from competition by its favored status as a regulated legacy monopoly.

When Duke Energy was founded in 1904, North Carolina had about 2 million residents, less than one-fifth our state’s population today. Charlotte was a small city of about 50,000 people. Segregationist Democrat Charles Aycock was governor. Republican Theodore Roosevelt was president. Work was just beginning on the Panama Canal. It would be another decade before John F. Kennedy’s parents married or World War I began.

Fast-forward more than a century. According to McClatchy’s undisputed reporting, dominant Duke Energy now doles out millions of dollars a year in campaign contributions and lobbying fees to influence state and federal energy laws to its financial benefit, filling the coffers and bending the ears of powerful lawmakers in both major political parties.

I’m a proudly conservative Republican wondering why it’s conservative for Republicans who purport to prize competition to do the bidding of a government-subsidized monopoly with such extraordinary power, if you will, over ordinary people’s lives.

It seems to me that it’s long past time for an efficient North Carolina energy market that prioritizes consumers and competition over corporate executives and well-heeled lobbyists.

We should back consumers. I’m far from alone in this view. A recent statewide energy-policy poll shows that conservative N.C. voters support more clean energy for several principled and practical reasons.

Conservative voters want more choice and competition in their power sources. According to Conservatives for Clean Energy’s 2022 North Carolina Energy Poll, fully four out of five conservative voters (79%) favor lawmakers who will pursue changes in our state’s policies to allow for more energy competition and more choices.

That’s because conservatives know that monopolies are inherently poisonous for consumers — especially with something as crucial to all of us as energy — while innovation, competition and free markets are good.

Three-fourths of conservatives (74%), favor studying options to revisit Duke Energy’s century-old monopoly to allow more consumer-friendly competition, the poll found. The N.C. General Assembly should require a market study forthwith. How can Republican lawmakers — or any other kind, for that matter — oppose an honest economic assessment?

We must support freedom. Promoting energy-efficient upgrades, such as weatherizing older homes and offices, is a sensible, highly effective, long-lasting way to reduce energy waste and costs without punishing consumers. Seven in 10 conservative voters (70%) favor lawmakers who support such efforts, the poll found. In other words, conserving is conservative. Who can be against it?

Russia’s brutal, despicable war to conquer Ukraine, which has strangled global oil supplies and sent fuel prices soaring, has driven home the urgency of America’s becoming fully energy independent. We cannot do that without expanding our domestic renewable energy resources. Thankfully, in North Carolina we have ample sunlight, wind and water to help get us there. All we need is political will.

The priorities of North Carolina’s conservative voters include innovative clean energy, market competition, consumer choices and energy independence. Our lawmakers of all stripes should acknowledge and enact these strong, bipartisan, common-sense public preferences.