Axel Rouvin
A look at who owns our electric companies — and what they fund globally — will make you recoil.U.S. electric rates are going up. In Missouri, Ameren increased residential power bills by 11% less than two years ago, and now it is seeking another 15% increase, per the Public Service Commission (PSC).
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), rate increases were experienced in 43 American states between 2023 and 2024. The EIA also reported record rate increases between 2021 and 2024 projections.
In California, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) was granted six rate increases in 2024. Local ABC 30 Action News reported that The Utility Reform Network estimated that residents had experienced a $50 average increase to their bill before the last of these increases took effect.
In New York City, Consolidated Edison Inc. (Con Edison) recently proposed an 11.4% rate increase for its electricity service, according to Energy and Environment News by Politico.
An 8.79% electric rate increase was recently approved for We Energy (WE) in Wisconsin, a subsidiary of WEC Energy Group, which also serves Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota, per Wisconsin Public Radio.
All of these companies are publicly owned, and they are just a tiny fraction of the American electric companies working to appease their top shareholders: BlackRock and Vanguard.
During the Jan. 15 public hearing to discuss Ameren Missouri’s proposed rate increase, Ameren Missouri vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs Warren Wood noted that the $446-million overall increase was proposed to offer a “fair return to shareholders.”
According to Ameren’s Nasdaq listing, the company’s top shareholder is Vanguard Group Inc., a global hedge fund investment company focused on assessing “climate risk” and “net zero emissions.”
BlackRock Inc. is Ameren’s third top shareholder, another global investment hedge fund focused on climate change. BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc. are also the top shareholders of Con Edison, PG&E, and the WEC Energy Group.
American Electric Power is the parent company of various local electric companies that serve Americans living in Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. According to the Nasdaq, this parent company’s top shareholders are Vanguard Group Inc. and BlackRock Inc. as well.
When cross-referencing every electric company that is a member of the Edison Electric Institute, one pattern is easily recognized: BlackRock and Vanguard are the top shareholders of the majority of American electric companies. And like their shareholders, these energy companies support the business of “clean energy.”
Ameren, Con Edison, PG&E, WEC Energy, and American Electric Power have all committed to “clean energy” solutions, without offering a long-term plan on how these sources will be maintained for the future.
“Clean Energy” waste has yet to be addressed by companies investing in “renewables.” It is a new concept even for the United States Environmental Protection Agency. On their website they note that “some end-of-life solar panels contain enough metals, like lead, to meet the definition of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.”
The EPA website also notes the need to update standards for lithium-ion solar battery waste, because “though lithium batteries are generally safe when used, stored, and charged appropriately, these batteries can cause fires when improperly discarded or otherwise mismanaged at the end of their lives.”
The Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, estimated in 2022 that just 5% of lithium-ion batteries were recycled, adding yet another waste problem for “clean energy.”
Add in ecosystem disruption and wildlife loss, and “clean energy” waste is growing into a big problem.
Unfortunately, solar power especially has another dirty record: according to the Heritage Foundation, “Roughly 80% of solar components are manufactured in China using slave labor.”
Even the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs states on its website, “Nearly half of the world’s polysilicon, a key material used to produce solar panels, comes from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR or Xinjiang), a region of China where members of ethnic and religious minority groups are forced by the government to work against their will.”
What’s more, Congress held a hearing exploring China’s role in enslaving children and other people in the Democratic Republic of Congo to mine cobalt, a key element in creating lithium-ion batteries.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) highlighted key points of the hearing:
- Around 70% of the world’s cobalt supply comes from the DRC, and 41% of all batteries containing cobalt are imported from the People’s Republic of China.
- CECC chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) stated, “From dirt to battery, from cobalt to cars, the entire system is fueled by violence, cruelty, and corruption. … By ignoring these rights and by treating people including children as expendable, China is committing gross violations of human rights and is seeking to rewrite the international order.”
- Journalist Stavros Nicolas Niarchos testified, “I have seen how landscapes have been destroyed, water polluted and air filled with dust and carbon as mining companies rush to extract minerals like copper, cobalt, lithium, and phosphates. Oftentimes, human rights abuses go hand in glove with these environmental catastrophes. … We must also not forget the very real human rights abuses that attend the extraction of battery metals in the DRC. Children are brutalized, women are violated, and men are subject to wage slavery.”
“Clean energy” investments and human rights violations surrounding Chinese industry are undeniable, and top American energy investors BlackRock and Vanguard are no strangers to China.
In 2023, BlackRock and another global investment company, MSCI, were investigated by the House Select Committee on the CCP and found to have profited from “fueling China’s military.”
The committee noted, “BlackRock and MSCI invest or enable the investment of Americans’ savings into dozens of blacklisted Chinese companies that threaten US national security or support the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses.”
Last year, the House Select Committee on the CCP reported that BlackRock had invested at least $1.9 billion in red-flagged and blacklisted companies that fund the military capabilities of the People’s Republic of China and aid its human rights violations.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America released a Case Study in 2023, which reported that Vanguard and another investment company, FTSE Russell, invested billions in the CCP.
The report found that Vanguard specifically funded dozens of Chinese military subsidiaries and eight Chinese companies that had been blacklisted due to their violations of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).
The top shareholders of publicly traded American energy companies have been linked to funding the nation’s largest adversary and its human rights violations. Meanwhile, Americans have been unknowingly footing the bill.
But there is another way. Electric Co-Ops are being formed all over the nation. These give residents the power. Instead of publicly trading American energy to any globalist CCP-supporting hedge fund, co-ops are owned by the residents who pay into them. No globalist interference, no slave labor products.
Right now, most of us have only a single electricity option, and these publicly traded monopolies are working against us. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can form more energy co-ops and escape the technocratic globalists preying on publicly traded electric companies, and we can power our homes our way without compromising American values.
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Image: Axel Rouvin via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
