CEEN at MARC

Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission chairman Jim Huston welcomes MARC attendees

Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner, Sarah Freeman, sits to chat with CEEN participants

WWGT founder, Gloria Lowe speaks with Commissioner Freeman

CEEN participants sit in the front row of the grand ballroom at MARC

CEEN participants WWGT founder Gloria Lowe with Kim Clark, Gregory Norris and Bishop

Fireside chat between Commissioner Freeman & Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner, Lindsay See

WWGT team members; Amani Sawari, Energy Advocate and Kim Clark, Board member at Belmont plant tour

MARC participants in Belmont plant tour

MARC participants in Belmont plant tour as tour guide points to large underground pipe

MARC participants in Belmont plant tour walking up stairs underground

MARC participants in Belmont plant tour

USM employee shows an example of scap metal artwork used to make their women trailblazer award

MARC participants in USM tour

Amani Sawari participates in lineman demonstration with AES Indiana and Duke Energy

Public Service Commission of Wisconsin invites MARC attendees to next year's conference

MARC conference participants in main Grand Ballroom

Lunch at MARC

Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure panel features ISAC, Citizens Energy & NineStar staff

Commissioner AMA panel

This past week the Collaborative Energy Engagement Network (CEEN) gave its first cohort of participants the opportunity to attend the Mid-America Regulatory Conference (MARC). MARC is a convening of public utility commissioners, utility company heads and their respective staff across 13 states hosting tours, panel discussions and fireside chats around best practices for utility service providers from water to gas and electricity. This year’s conference was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

For many years these conversations happened without any input from ratepaying community advocates focused on environmental justice. This year CEEN in partnership with Black Sun Light Sustainability and RE-AMP Indiana sought to change that. In a place where decisions are influenced and relationships are built between the industry leaders that impact the lives of everyone, organizations like We Want Green Too were offered a seat at the table. Utilities are unique in that they aren’t something you can simply cut back on without feeling its impact in your day to day life, from managing cooking or cleaning & hygiene to doing homework or working from home and even maintaining basic comforts or medical necessities. Struggling to maintain utility costs or reliable service directly impacts all of these issues. 

The question I sought to answer while at MARC was, If more reliable service depends on increased service costs, for communities already struggling, how are increased costs that lead to increased shutoffs having a positive impact on reliability? 

While navigating the complex layers of that question, as a community advocate significant gaps in my understanding around utility infrastructure were addressed through my participation. MARC offered a wide range of tours  including Indiana’s Belmont Wastewater Treatment Plant, United Scrap Metal’s (USM) Facility in Shelbyville and even a lineworker training demonstration with Duke Energy at AES Indiana’s largest training facility in Arlington. Through these on-site experiences I was able to see first hand the infrastructure that rate cases often reference “expanding” or “improving” in their rate hike proposals, deepening my understanding of the complexity behind these systems. It’s easy to deny rate hikes or invalidate budget line items for equipment you’ve never seen before. 

There’s much more meaning behind the risk associated with outdated transmission lines after seeing a hotdog burn from the inside out when placed up against a live line by a rubber gloved Duke Energy lineman. Similarly, colleagues and I reveled at the sight of the interconnected piping blasted into place during the early 19th century, 250 ft below ground. We were in awe of the bubbling, seemingly still waters that microbes filled as they broke down the 90 million gallons of waste passing through Belmont’s pipes each day. I was just as impressed by the efforts that USM’s women founded business went to recycle more than 97% of the ferrous (magnetic) and nonferrous materials they received each day. 

While these experiences informed my perspective behind the services that utility companies provided, I hope that my presence in these spaces served utility leaders in a similar way. Could they see the value I provided with my insights and lived experience? Conversations around affordability rarely mention energy burden, with company heads centering the significance of infrastructure improvements over that of the communities that fail to benefit from those improvements as they battle to keep up with rates increasing over that of general inflation.

Leaving marginalized communities out of the energy conversations being held between utility regulators and CEOs is a disservice to more than the ratepayers who can’t help but feel overwhelmed with the burden of mounting costs on their monthly bills. It also places regulators in the failing position of translating the benefits of costly systems to ratepayers who lack trust in their decision-making fueled by misrepresentation and misunderstanding. It also places CEOs in the adversarial position of greedy business owners with tens of millions of dollar salaries exploiting the limited wages of those residents they seek to serve. 

While both sides may have some truth, CEEN is closing the gap between these groups towards a more just and equitable rate-making process where more informed parties in each group can learn to value the insights of one another. As we navigate a society preparing for aggressive data loads with increased scrutiny and accumulating cyber threats attacking every sector of the industry; MARC’s inclusion of CEEN as apart the 2025 conference makes me hopeful for a more collaborative organizing structure that embraces energy advocates alongside utility providers and regulators as an essential tool towards a sustainable energy future that I hope is nurtured for many years to come.     

Written by Amani Sawari, Energy Advocate at We Want Green, Too