Bob Wyman for Congress (NY CD-10)

When you raise fixed charges, the poor get hit the hardest. In fact, until 2001, every state gave larger users a "volume discount" while socking the poor with the highest electricity rates. The reason was pretty simple, residential customers are expensive to serve.

These rates along with building codes and other "big government" efforts have led to remarkably low electricity bills in California. We are left to conclude that price signals work and energy efficiency leads to lower electricity bills -- even if rates are higher.

Contrast this with Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia which are under the thumb of @SouthernCompany. These states used to have pretty low electricity prices from coal but have always been in the top ten most expensive electricity bills in the country.

That doesn't provide the right incentives. What you want is to have lower rates for the poor and more energy efficient while charging more to profligate users to give them an incentive to invest in efficiency -- so charge $0.09/kWh for first 750kWhs and probably $0.15/kWh after