April 2, 2024

 A poll released today regarding proposed Missouri legislation that would increase incumbent utility control over the state’s electric power grid shows that voters continue to show very little support for the concept.

Conducted by national polling firm TargetPoint Consulting during the period of March 20-23, 2024, the poll found that a supermajority of voters agrees that so-called “Right of First Refusal Legislation” currently being considered once again by the Missouri Legislature has many downsides for consumers. The legislation, which failed to pass the legislature in 2023, would limit competition on who can build transmission lines - the large powerlines that carry electricity from the power generating facilities to your local utility provider – and automatically grant current incumbent electric utilities the right to build any new transmission lines in their service area, instead of allowing a competitive bidding process to take place. Results of the poll also show that:

• 76% of voters agree that in a time of record inflation, electrical rates are already extremely high and a burden on the consumer and that legislators should fight to decrease costs, not raise them.

• 76% agree that ROFR will increase power of incumbent utilities and want legislators to act in interests of citizens.

• 74% of voters agree that ROFR’s elimination of competition will drive up prices and deprive customers of substantial cost savings seen in other states.

• 65% agree that ROFR simply runs against core principles of free-markets and open competition.

Additionally, with a Right of First Refusal law having already been thrown out by a federal court in Texas for being unconstitutional, denied a hearing by the US Supreme Court and thrown out by the Iowa Supreme Court, voters believe the Missouri legislation will end up in court as well. 76% agreed including 78% of Republicans, 77% of Democrats and 74% of Independents that the last thing Missouri needed to spend more money on was lawyers and lawsuits when it could be going to fund schools, roads and other important projects.

Called “an unlikely alliance of consumer and clean energy groups, right-leaning free- market organizations and transmission line developers” by the Missouri Independent , opponents say eliminating competition would drive up costs of transmission projects. Those costs are then borne by customers in rate increases.

Organizations that testified in opposition to the so-called Right of First Refusal legislation last year included AARP, Americans for Fair Energy Prices, Americans for Prosperity, Coastal Energy, Consumers Council of Missouri, Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition, LS Power, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Missouri Industrial Energy Consumers, R-Street Institute, Renew Missouri, Sierra Club—Missouri Chapter, Show-Me Institute and Southwest Transmission, LLC in addition to more than 1,200 Missourians who joined AFEP and agreed that a lack of competition in building electric transmission leads to higher electricity rates, stifles innovation and increases risks for consumers.

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