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) — a convening of public utility commissioners, utility company heads, and their staff across 13 states, hosting tours, panel discussions, and fireside chats on 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 made and relationships are built between the industry leaders who impact everyone's lives, organizations like We Want Green Too were offered a seat at the table. Utilities are unique in that you can't simply cut back on them without feeling the impact in your daily life — from cooking, cleaning, and hygiene to homework, working from home, and basic comforts or medical necessities. Struggling with utility costs or reliable service directly affects all of it.
If more reliable service depends on higher costs, how do increased bills — that lead to more shutoffs — have a positive impact on reliability?
While navigating the layers of that question, significant gaps in my understanding of utility infrastructure were addressed through participation. MARC offered a wide range of tours — Indiana's Belmont Wastewater Treatment Plant, United Scrap Metal's (USM) facility in Shelbyville, and a lineworker training demonstration with Duke Energy at AES Indiana's largest training facility in Arlington. Through these on-site experiences I saw firsthand the infrastructure that rate cases so often reference 'expanding' or 'improving,' 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.
There's much more meaning behind the risk of outdated transmission lines after watching a hotdog burn from the inside out against a live line, held by a rubber-gloved Duke Energy lineman. Colleagues and I marveled at the interconnected piping blasted into place generations ago, 250 feet below ground, and at the bubbling, seemingly still waters filled with microbes breaking down the 90 million gallons of waste passing through Belmont's pipes each day. I was equally impressed by the lengths USM's women-founded business goes to recycle more than 97% of the ferrous and nonferrous materials it receives daily.
While these experiences informed my perspective on the services utilities provide, I hope my presence served utility leaders in a similar way. Could they see the value of my insights and lived experience? Conversations about affordability rarely mention energy burden, with company heads centering infrastructure improvements over the communities that fail to benefit from them while battling rates that rise faster than general inflation.
Leaving marginalized communities out of the energy conversations held between utility regulators and CEOs is a disservice to more than just the ratepayers overwhelmed by mounting monthly bills. It places regulators in the failing position of translating the benefits of costly systems to ratepayers whose distrust is fueled by misrepresentation and misunderstanding. And it casts CEOs as greedy owners with tens of millions in salary exploiting the limited wages of the residents they aim to serve.
While both sides hold some truth, CEEN is closing the gap toward a more just and equitable rate-making process — one where more informed parties in each group can learn to value one another's insights. As we navigate a society preparing for aggressive data loads, increased scrutiny, and accumulating cyber threats across every sector, MARC's inclusion of CEEN in its 2025 conference makes me hopeful for a more collaborative structure that embraces energy advocates alongside utility providers and regulators — an essential tool for a sustainable energy future I hope is nurtured for many years to come.
Written by Amani Sawari, Energy Advocate at We Want Green Too.
