Water, power and gas are fully public utilities.
Treat water, electricity and natural gas as fully public utilities. Reliable, affordable clean electricity is an essential public service, not a private concession.
Realistic now
Bring water, power and gas under public ownership and operation, by buyout at original-cost value: original cost less wear, with no monopoly premium and no acquisition markup. Weatherize homes, invest in clean generation and publish rates, bills and outage performance.
The ideal
A reliable, fully public utility system with charges that cover service, upkeep and reserves without shareholder markup.
Benefits
Public ownership lets communities direct investment and scrutinize the bill.
Costs / risks
Grid upgrades, storage, reliability and debt service need long-term funding. Public ownership does not guarantee a low bill.
Real life
The costs exhibit uses APPA’s national extrapolated residential bills from 2024 EIA utility data.
APPA · EIA-861 (2024), p. 11 · EIA · Residential natural gas