St. Louis's Gateway Arch National Park

JEFFERSON CITY, MO  — Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a national advocate for energy consumers, today released the following statement by CEA’s Midwest Executive Director Chris Ventura, after Senate Bill 564 was passed overwhelmingly by the Missouri State House of Representatives:

“On behalf of CEA members representing families, households, and seniors on fixed incomes across Missouri, we want to thank this overwhelmingly bipartisan effort in the House, to pass grid modernization legislation, that will help us have smarter, more stable and secure electric infrastructure in the state. We thank members in the Missouri House and Senate for focusing their attention on the importance of ensuring we have modernized energy infrastructure to meet our future needs in our ever-connected world.

“As advocates for families, small businesses and households, we are pleased that the bill provides for first-ever rate caps and will return more than $133 million to consumers within 90 days of becoming law. We look forward to working together with Missouri policymakers to support building the energy infrastructure that not only provides upgraded capabilities but also protects the pocketbooks of people on fixed incomes or living paycheck to paycheck. Nothing is more important to us than ensuring energy consumers – especially those struggling to make ends meet – are treated fairly.”

CEA recently released a report titled, “Missouri Families, Small Businesses and Households Need a Modern, Upgraded Grid,” to highlight the importance of improving and modernizing Missouri’s energy grid. CEA’s report found that Missouri’s families, households, seniors, small businesses, and manufacturers are seeing increasing costs of electricity with decreasing reliability, all while missing out on the tremendous economic benefits of a smarter, more integrated grid that could optimize clean energy resources, guard against cyber threats, and restore power in the event of a storm or outage.

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About Consumer Energy Alliance
Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) brings together families, farmers, small businesses, distributors, producers and manufacturers to support America’s energy future. With more than 500,000 members nationwide, our mission is to help ensure stable prices and energy security for households across the country. We believe energy development is something that touches everyone in our nation, and thus it is necessary for all of us to actively engage in the conversation about how we develop our diverse energy resources and energy’s importance to the economy. Learn more at
ConsumerEnergyAlliance.org.

Contact:
Emily Haggstrom
P: 720-582-0242
ehaggstrom@consumerenergyalliance.org