The Ethics in Energy Act of 2025 prohibits covered utilities from passing the costs of political influence activities onto ratepayers and mandates detailed annual reporting of such expenses to FERC.
Kathy Castor
Representative
FL-14
The Ethics in Energy Act of 2025 prohibits covered electric and natural gas utilities from passing the costs of political influencing activities onto their customers through rate requests. The Act mandates that FERC establish new accounting rules to segregate these "covered expenses" and requires utilities to submit detailed annual reports on all such political spending. Utilities found to have wrongly charged ratepayers for these expenses will face significant financial penalties, with collected funds split between customer rebates and enforcement.
Utility Bill Ban: Energy Companies Can No Longer Charge Customers for Political Lobbying and PR Costs
When you pay your monthly electric or gas bill, you’re covering the cost of generating and delivering that energy—plus, currently, the utility company’s political spending. The Ethics in Energy Act of 2025 aims to put a hard stop to that practice.
The Fine Print: What This Bill Actually Does
This legislation targets large electric and natural gas providers (defined here as “covered utilities”) and prohibits them from passing the costs of “political influence activity” onto their customers. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has 18 months to rewrite the accounting rulebook, ensuring that these political costs are tracked in special accounts that are presumed not recoverable from you, the ratepayer (SEC. 3).
What exactly is a “covered expense”? It’s broad. It includes direct lobbying costs, money paid to outside groups for political influencing, and even the portion of a utility employee’s salary spent on these activities. Crucially, it also covers trade association dues and any advertising or marketing designed to “sway public opinion, boost the utility’s reputation, or increase goodwill with the public or officials” (SEC. 2).
Your Money, Not Their Campaign Fund
For years, consumer advocates have pointed out that utilities often use ratepayer money—your money—to fight regulations or fund PR campaigns that benefit their shareholders, not their customers. This bill aims to decouple those costs completely. For example, if a major gas utility spends $5 million on a public advertising campaign to promote a new pipeline project and convince local officials it’s necessary, that $5 million can no longer be baked into the rates you pay for gas.
To ensure compliance, covered utilities must file a detailed annual report with FERC, listing every single covered expense. This report must include who was paid (even if it was a parent company paying a vendor), the job title of any utility staff involved, and a clear explanation of the expense’s purpose (SEC. 3). This level of granular detail means utilities can’t just hide political spending inside a generic “administrative costs” line item.
The Penalty Box: Making Sure the Rules Stick
This isn't just a slap on the wrist; the bill includes strong financial teeth. If FERC finds that a utility has illegally charged customers for a covered expense, the utility faces significant penalties, and they cannot pass the cost of those penalties onto ratepayers (SEC. 3).
The fines are designed to sting: if a utility wrongly charges customers between $1 million and $10 million, the penalty is at least double that amount. If the violation is over $10 million, the penalty is at least triple the amount. The best part for consumers? Half of the money collected from these penalties goes right back to the ratepayers as a rebate, while the other half funds FERC’s enforcement efforts (SEC. 3). This creates a direct incentive for utilities to comply and a mechanism for customers to get reimbursed if they don’t.
The Real-World Impact
For the average person juggling bills, this means your utility company can no longer force you to subsidize their political agenda or their glossy image campaigns. While you might not see a massive drop in your bill overnight, this prevents the slow, steady creep of political spending from inflating your monthly costs. It essentially forces utilities to fund their political activities with shareholder money, not customer money.
However, the broad definition of “Political Influence Activity”—which includes reputation-boosting advertising—could become a point of contention. Utilities will likely argue that certain marketing is necessary for business operations, while regulators will have to draw a clear line between legitimate public information and prohibited political influencing. FERC will have its work cut out for it auditing these complex financial structures, especially when parent companies are involved, but the detailed reporting requirements mandated by this bill give them the necessary tools to dig into the finances.