Ballot proposal would revamp utility industry
A political committee has spent nearly $400,000 in recent months and submitted 33,863 valid petition signatures as it tries to get a measure on the 2020 ballot that would revamp Florida’s electric utility industry.
The proposal, backed by a committee called Citizens for Energy Choices, calls for wholesale and retail electricity markets to “be fully competitive so that electricity customers are afforded meaningful choices among a wide variety of competing electricity providers.”
It would establish a right for customers to choose electricity providers and would limit the role of investor-owned electric utilities — private companies such as Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric Co. and Gulf Power Co. — to constructing, operating and repairing transmission and distribution systems.
Citizens for Energy Choices registered with the state Division of Elections in late September and had spent $396,515 as of Nov. 30, according to state records. It had raised $434,000, all of which came from the organization Coalition for Energy Choice, Inc.
