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LANSING – Just hours after the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) approved another natural gas rate hike for DTE yesterday, allowing the utility to collect an additional $74.52 million in annual revenue from its ratepayers, the utility entered a “Filing Announcement,” formally and publicly announcing its intent to seek yet another rate hike this November. In response, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is reaffirming her commitment to protecting ratepayers, pledging to intervene in all major cases before the Commission.
“Not weeks, not days, but literally hours after securing a multi-million-dollar rate hike from the Commission, all while Michigan families struggle to keep their homes warm, DTE announced its intent to ask its customers for more,” said Attorney General Nessel. “This system is fundamentally broken, and Michigan ratepayers deserve better. They deserve better from the regulated monopolies raking in profits off of their backs, better from a Commission that consistently and predictably splits the difference between corporate greed and affordable rates, and better from elected officials who have chosen to look the other way. For nearly 8 years, my office has fought to save Michiganders literally billions of dollars in proposed rate hikes from DTE and Consumers Energy, amid ever-growing utility demands and predictable approval from state regulators. While I am tremendously proud of our attorneys’ tireless work on these cases, Michigan appears simply trapped in an endless and unsustainable cycle of soaring gas and electric bills.”
While it remains unknown how many additional millions of dollars DTE will seek to bill its customers in the upcoming rate hike request, in its previous case approved by the Commission yesterday, the utility sought to hike overall rates by 10%. In its order approving the $74.52 million increase, the Commission additionally includes a $74.8 million infrastructure recovery mechanism that is already being collected but was reapproved for several more years. Yesterday’s approved rate hike will increase rates by more than 4% for residential customers, significantly less than the utility’s request in part due to the advocacy of the Attorney General.
Attorney General Nessel intervenes in every major utility rate case before the MPSC and has helped save Michigan consumers more than $4.6 billion in proposed rate hikes. Other rate hike cases currently open before the MPSC include Consumers Energy’s natural gas rate hike request (U-21981) and electric rate hike request (U-22070), DTE’s electric rate hike request (U-22046), SEMCO Energy Gas Company’s natural gas rate hike request (U-22002), and Upper Peninsula Power Company’s electric rate hike request (U-22032).
DTE sells natural gas to 1.3 million customers across the state and electricity to approximately 2.3 million customers in Southeast Michigan.
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