Law & Lawyers

Residential customers in New York paid 23 percent less for electric service this February than in February 2015, per new Energy Department data released Thursday. In Massachusetts residential customers paid 22 percent less. Same in Connecticut.

Part of the reason was fewer kilowatt-hours taken. In New York, residential customers took 9 percent fewer. In Massachusetts, they took 15 percent fewer. In Connecticut, they took 17 percent fewer.

U.S. households paid utilities $10.9 billion for electric service in April. That's what the Energy Department told us Friday in its latest data release.

It was the least that households have spent on electricity in a while. The last time a month's electric bills were this low? April 2012, four years earlier.

Over these four years, April 2012 to April 2016, the number of households increased by about four percent. And the overall consumer price index increased by about four and a half percent. 

Using the cool state map on the NARUC web site, I calculated that there are 8,283 state commission staff.

Only the screen for the Wisconsin Public Service Commission didn’t show the number of staff.  But I counted using that Commission’s staff directory. 

There’s an average of 162 staff at each state commission.  

More good news yesterday for electric service customers.

The Commerce Department published the numbers it uses to estimate the gross domestic product. Including personal consumption expenditures, which is seventy percent of the GDP. 

Including the expenditures for cars, clocks, carpet, computers, cereal, clothing, cosmetics, child care, cabs, clubs, cable, cell phones and casinos. That’s just the c’s. 

And including the expenditures for electric service.