Eat the Rich Before They Devour the Planet

It took the world’s richest 1% the first 10 days of 2026 to burn through their share of climate-changing emissions. Not to be outdone, the wealthiest 0.1% needed just three days to exhaust their annual carbon budget.

In late March, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) struck down the return on equity (ROE), or allowed profits, that New England’s electric transmission utilities have been earning on their power line investments. The federal agency found previous rates of return to be “unjust and unreasonable” and required the utilities to refund as much as $1.5 billion in overpayments to New England electricity customers dating back more than a decade.

Despite this spring reduction, the utilities recently proposed to FERC that they should receive an even higher new rate of guaranteed return on equity. Rather than adopting the 9.57% rate that FERC had specified, the utilities proposed a rate of 11.39%.

This proposed ROE, if adopted, would result in billions of dollars in additional charges for New England electricity customers that would significantly increase the cost of electricity across the region, according to the Acadia Center.

To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.