Local opinion: Mayor and council: Put Tucson back in TEP

Good news is hard to come by these days, but luckily Tucson has found a few turquoises in the rough. The decision by the mayor and city council on June 17 to not rush forward with putting a one-sided 25-year franchise agreement with TEP on the ballot was the right call for Tucsonans. Additionally, the mayor and council did the right thing in undertaking a critical feasibility study that investigates whether a local public power utility would be better than our current arrangement of a private TEP owned by the Canadian conglomerate Fortis.

The results are in, and it’s good for Tucson. Experts on the energy sourcing study conclude that a public power takeover is feasible in Tucson and would save residents hundreds of dollars per year, even within the first five years. Within 16-20 years, each of our households would save over $1,000 yearly on our electricity.

In a state with increasingly hot weather (with over 100 days of 100 degrees or hotter in 2024), it is a matter of life and death to ensure we can afford our electricity bill; there should not be a shareholder profit tax on the human right to live in your home, but that is exactly what TEP imposes on us.

And why should we pay anything to a company that continues to gouge us more and more in the face of climate destruction? In their financial disclosures, Fortis tells of how despite their losses in other utilities like Central Hudson in New York, they more than make up for them with TEP’s rate hikes and “warmer weather” — yes, Fortis facilitates the climate shifting toward making our city unlivable and then eagerly scoops up the money because of it. If you were hoping for a change in behavior, save your breath. Just recently, TEP filed for a 14% rate hike with the ACC. This request came minutes after a county vote to approve of the Project Blue data center — even though they refused to disclose how much energy the potential facility would even use, publicly assured that rates would not rise due to facility demand, and proceeded to immediately renege on that idea the moment they could. This is the level of trustworthiness we deal with in a private utility, caring for us about as much as the private utilities responsible for the wildfires which incinerated Paradise, California and Lahaina, Hawaii. Meanwhile, instead of destroying all of nature for the sake of rich people making more money, a public power utility is found to meet Tucson’s climate goals of 100% renewables by 2045 (under an accelerated scenario, by 2035).

Personally, I would prefer a Tucson that has cleaner air and cheaper electricity to rate hikes, making it impossible to live here while the city is burnt off the map.

This shift to public power may seem like a dramatic change into uncharted, speculative waters at first, but over 54 million Americans already live with public power, enjoying lower costs and more reliable electricity as a result.

In fact, in Arizona, several towns and cities, such as Mesa and Safford, operate their own public power utilities.

Communities such as Winter Park, Forida. and Massena, New York, came together to conduct a takeover of their private utilities in favor of public ones, and now enjoy cheaper electricity, fewer and shorter outages, and less emissions than before and compared to their surrounding, still-privatized neighbors.

With a public power utility, Mayor and Council, you have an opportunity to address both the climate crisis and affordability crisis. Now that Trump is back in office, we need the City of Tucson to do everything it can on climate action, and that includes standing up to big corporations like Fortis. Let’s take back our power and put the Tucson back in TEP.