Should Massachusetts ban competitive suppliers from selling electricity to new residential customers?
Liz Anderson Christina McNeil  As a Massachusetts resident, you may have been targeted by a competitive electric supplier  a knock on your door or frequent calls on your phone promising electricity cheaper than your current utility. Unfortunately, competitive electric suppliers are actually draining millions from our communities each year. Too many residents have switched to a supplier from their utility only to discover later that their electricity bills have skyrocketed. At the Attorney Generals office, we want to do something about it. After receiving hundreds of complaints, our office investigated the industrys impact on residential customers in Massachusetts  and the results were staggering. Our April report found that, over the last five years, residents enrolled with suppliers paid $426 million more on their electric bills than if they had stayed with their utility. Even worse, our analysis shows that suppliers have consistently charged higher prices to low-income residents and communities of color. In my home city of Quincy, residents lost $116,000 to these companies in just one month. Sadly, similar studies in states with a competitive supply market have found that instead of saving money, customers pay millions more. Companies cannot promise lower rates but deliver higher ones  thats illegal. Our office has gone after several suppliers and secured more than $15 million in restitution for affected customers. The Department of Public Utilities has also increased regulatory oversight and enforcement. However, despite these efforts, Massachusetts residents continue to lose millions of dollars annually. Advertisement  Suppliers sometimes claim they provide extra green energy. It is critical that Massachusetts makes progress towards its nation-leading climate goals. But these supplier offerings often do less to displace fossil fuels than other viable, green energy optionssuch as municipal energy aggregation programs. Advertisement  Massachusetts opened the residential market to suppliers to save consumers money, but the data is clear  this is a failed experiment that harms consumers. For this reason, we filed legislation with state Senator Brendan Crighton and state Representative Frank Moran to prevent these companies from enrolling new residential customers, a first step to ending those contracts altogether. We should pass this legislation now to protect our residents from suppliers false promises once and for all. NO  Daniel Allegretti  Spokesperson, Retail Energy Supply Association  Daniel Allegretti Retail Energy Supply Association  Looking back at the introduction of choice in telephone service, the changes over time have been astounding. When choice was introduced, the main driver for consumers was savings on long distance calls measured in cents per minute. Critics of competition focused on comparing rates charged by new entrants like Sprint and MCI versus those of Ma Bell, missing the bigger picture of how competition would propel astounding innovations in products, technology, and consumer behavior. Competition drives innovation. Competition helped deliver wireless telephones with previously unimagined services like email, texting, GPS navigation, web searches, gaming, music, video and so many more ideas beyond the imagination of early critics. As we look to the future of electric choice there is no way to begin to know what comparable sorts of innovative changes and benefits electric competition will produce. What is clear, however, is that if Massachusetts takes peoples choices away then consumers in the Commonwealth will be left far behind in seeing these changes. People want choices. Advertisement  A national survey of 1,000 likely voters commissioned by my organization in 2020 found that 76 percent of respondents believe there is importance in choice when deciding on consumer products such as cell phones or ISP plans and 74 percent agree consumers should be able to shop for energy suppliers in the same way. Additionally, 58 percent of respondents want energy to be a competitive marketplace and let competition drive down costs. Competition lowers cost for everyone. The most immediate benefit of retail energy choice is lower costs for consumers. States which have adopted customer choice in electricity have all outperformed those states which have not in lowering electric costs for everyone, according to research published by my organization. This is true whether customers choose a retail electric supplier or stay with service from their utility. Smart shoppers are the ones who save the most. Our analysis of available offers in Massachusetts consistently shows that effective shoppers can save money compared to the utility company in every month of every year just by paying attention and taking advantage of the market. For these reasons and more, taking away consumers choices for their electricity provider does not serve anyone in the Commonwealth. As told to Globe correspondent John Laidler. To suggest a topic, please contact laidler@globe.com. This is not a scientific survey. Please only vote once.