Baltimore General Electric has announced it is filing with the Maryland Public Service Commission to reduce energy rates, passing along corporate tax cuts to their customers.
When Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act just before Christmas, pundits and experts alike were unsure of how much average Americans would feel the benefits. Since then, however, at least two million Americans have received pay increases or bonuses from companies passing along their corporate tax savings to their employees. The most recent announcement came from Walmart, which plans to give $700 million back to its employees by raising its minimum wage to $11 an hour and giving bonuses of up to $1,000. Today, you can add Baltimore General Electric to the growing list of companies reducing costs and fees thanks to their corporate tax windfall.
If their proposal is approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission, the average Baltimore General Electric customer should expect to see their monthly electric bill decrease by $2.31. Residential customers who use BGE for electricity and natural gas should expect to see their monthly bills reduced by an average of $4.27. Both of these changes would be effective February 1, 2018 if approved.
“Reduced tax costs create an opportunity for BGE customers to benefit from further decreases in their total energy bills,” said Calvin G. Butler Jr, chief executive officer of BGE, said in a press release. “Even prior to the tax reductions, the long-term trends of customers using significantly less energy and the declining costs of natural gas and electricity commodities have resulted in the average BGE residential customer’s total monthly bill remaining lower than 2008 levels.”Today, Baltimore General Electric has approximately 1.25 million electricity customers and more than 650,000 natural gas customers in central Maryland. Pepco has also announced rate increases for its 1.1 million customers in the D.C. metro area. While the company had originally proposed a rate increase late last year of approximately $7.50 a month, they will instead reduce the average customer's monthly bill by a little more than $4. Together, that will translate to Pepco customers paying approximately $140 less on their yearly energy bills than they were expect to prior to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It is important to remember that because these energy companies are accountable to state regulatory commissions, they would have been required to adjust their rates anyway. The Virginia State Corporation Commission has also ordered all of the Commonwealth's private utilities to figure out their tax savings and re-adjust their public fee and price structures accordingly. Have you noticed any other changes since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? Let us know in the comment section below!
