LANSING (WWJ) — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a notice of intervention as DTE Energy requested a rate hike of more than $450 million.
If approved, DTE’s annual increase would take effect in January of 2025.
“This rate hike request comes a mere four months (118 days) after DTE received authority to increase its rates by $368 million, a move that cost the average residential customer $100 or more per year,” Nessel’s office said in a press release.
Nessel’s office says DTE is trying to “effectively raise its annual rates by more than $800 million in a period of 13 months.”
Nessel intends to intervene in the rate case, as she does in all utility rate increase requests before the Michigan Public Service Commission. The AG’s office says she has been analyzing and consulting experts in regards to DTE’s “incessant rate increase requests.”
“While her advocacy has helped save customers billions, these hundred-million-dollar rate cases are accumulating, per the Department’s preliminary analysis, in an unprecedented fashion toward unsustainable electric bills,” the department said.
Not all details of DTE’s most recent price rate increase request are known, as it’s in the early stages, but the AG’s office will “carefully scrutinize the filing to ensure customers do not pay additional costs without commensurate, quantifiable benefits.”
“In recent rate hike requests, DTE has attempted to pass such costs on to consumers and, when challenged by the Attorney General, has often failed to justify the undue burdens or even attempt to explain the costs to the MPSC,” Nessel’s office said.
“This latest rate hike request from DTE is, frankly, absurd in both the astounding dollars and obnoxious timing—requesting yet another $450 million not even four months since their last rate hike was approved,” Nessel said.
She said the “oppressive” rate hike requests are “not grounded in reality, but rather based on the financial aspirations of their corporate shareholders.”