Senate Bill 261: A bad deal for North Carolina’s ratepayers

RALEIGH (March 12, 2025) – Senate Bill 261, a dangerous bill that will harm North Carolina families, is moving quickly through the NC General Assembly and will soon be on the Senate floor for a vote. The NC Justice Center strongly rejects SB 261, which will make customers pay up front for expensive and risky energy projects. This bill will create an even greater strain on ratepayers who are already struggling from volatile natural gas prices and with high energy bills from year-over-year rate increases.

SB 261 takes away the incentive for the utility to build power plants quickly and inexpensively, as ratepayers will be covering the costs along the way. The risk to customers is real. “When South Carolina had a similar policy in place 10 years ago, ratepayers paid billions of dollars to fund the construction of a nuclear power plant that never produced a single unit of power,” said Claire Williamson, Senior Energy Policy Advocate at the NC Justice Center. “What other industry requires customers to pay for a service without any guarantee of receiving it? NC legislators should not allow massive energy corporations to enrich themselves at the expense of North Carolina families.”

The North Carolina Justice Center firmly opposes this legislation, which forces hardworking customers to foot the bill for large energy corporations’ expenses. We urge NC lawmakers to vote no on SB 261.