Is It Time to Eliminate State Public Utility Commissions?

In a time of institutional upheaval and reappraisal The Trump administration, with help from the Supreme Court, is trying to weaken or abolish Federal regulation by administrative agencies. States with a similar philosophical bent might attempt to do the same. Here we examine the issues that will arise when policy wonks make their “modest” proposals to abolish state agencies that regulate public utilities. They might argue that these agencies no longer suit the purpose for which they were intended in the late nineteenth and early twentieth…