Justices Urged to Overturn TECO Rates

Article reposted with permission from The News Service of Florida.

The state Office of Public Counsel and consumer groups Monday argued the Florida Supreme Court should overturn regulators’ approval of rate increases for Tampa Electric Co. The Office of Public Counsel, which is designated by law to represent consumers in utility issues, and the groups Florida Rising and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Florida filed briefs raising a series of objections to the Florida Public Service Commission’s approval of the rates. The regulatory commission approved a nearly $185 million base-rate increase for Tampa Electric that took effect in 2025, followed by expected increases of $86.6 million in 2026 and $9.1 million in 2027. The Office of Public Counsel and the groups filed notices last year of appealing the rate decisions to the Supreme Court. As an example of the arguments in Monday’s briefs, the Office of Public Counsel contended that the commission did not properly consider “affordability” in the approval. The brief said a 2024 state law “expressly provides that the state’s new energy policy ‘must’ be guided by the goal of ensuring a cost-effective and ‘affordable’ energy supply.” The brief said that while the commission “did conduct a cursory evaluation of TECO’s rate affordability, the commission explicitly conducted its analysis under the pre-existing framework of fair, just, and affordable rates, such as it was, and therefore did not meet the Legislature’s mandate to consider whether TECO’s application met the goal of affordability.”