Jane Brady is a former Delaware attorney general.
Pennsylvania just gave Delaware a road map for confronting the greed of monopoly utilities. Whether Delaware’s leaders choose to follow it remains to be seen.
When Gov. Josh Shapiro called out PECO’s rate request for what it was — a profitable utility reaching into the pockets of working families — he didn’t do it with a quiet regulatory filing or a carefully worded press statement. He did it loudly, publicly and by name. The result? A utility that had insisted that its investment plans were fixed and essential suddenly discovered it possessed some flexibility.
Delaware should be paying attention — not because our situation is identical to Pennsylvania’s but because the underlying dynamic is precisely the same.
Delmarva Power is an Exelon subsidiary, the same multibillion-dollar corporate parent that PECO has. These are not struggling enterprises. Exelon is one of the most financially stable utility conglomerates in the country, and its earnings report for the first quarter of 2026 showed yet another increase in profits. It should be no surprise that, due to Exelon’s guaranteed returns baked into the regulatory framework, captive consumers have nowhere else to turn, and revenue streams are protected from virtually every market risk that ordinary Delaware businesses face every day. When a company like that comes to the Delaware Public Service Commission asking for more, the first question shouldn’t be how much is reasonable. The first question should be why the hike is necessary in the first place.
Here’s something that rarely makes it into the conversation about utility bills: The actual cost of energy has stayed relatively constant for years. What has exploded is the delivery charge, the fee that goes directly to the regulated utility company. The charge is not set by the market but by regulators and is guaranteed regardless of how energy prices fluctuate. For many Delaware customers, delivery now rivals or exceeds the energy cost itself. That’s not a market outcome. That’s a regulatory outcome, and it can be changed.
Delaware is a small state. That’s usually described as a limitation. In this case, it’s an advantage. Our legislature is more accessible. Our governor’s office is not some far-off institution. The Public Service Commission is not some untouchable bureaucracy that can’t be influenced by public pressure. What happens in Dover is clear to the people it affects. There is no reason why Delaware cannot move faster and more decisively than its larger neighbors on this issue.
That starts with elected officials being willing to say plainly what Gov. Shapiro said in Pennsylvania. Utilities earning hundreds of millions in profit do not have an automatic right to collect even more from ratepayers, and the public interest requires oversight, not blind acceptance. Utility companies are highly sophisticated. They have teams of lawyers and consultants, and they know how to present a rate case in language that makes it sound convincing and unavoidable. The response to that shouldn’t be passivity but political will.
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer and our General Assembly should be using every available tool — legislative, regulatory and rhetorical — to ensure that the era of routine rate increases is over. The Public Service Commission should be hearing loud and clear from elected officials that affordability is not a secondary issue to be balanced against utility revenue projections. It is the primary concern.
Lawmakers are starting to pay attention, with one state senator reacting: “I think it’s a little tone-deaf to come with the rate increase, such as the one they did, with a 10.5% return on equity for Delawareans.” Now, it’s time to take concrete action. Reject the current rate hike request and implement a full freeze on further requests going forward.
The utilities will say they need the revenue to modernize the grid, to ensure reliability and to meet clean energy standards. Some of that is true, but none of it means we accept it with no questions asked. Investments can be phased. Returns can be scrutinized. Shareholders can absorb more risk than Delaware ratepayers currently bear on their behalf.
Pennsylvania showed what’s possible when a governor decides that utility customers are worth fighting for. Delaware’s leaders just need the political will to engage.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
