February 5, 2026/Media, Press

REMINDER: As NC Families Face Rising Energy Costs, Whatley Has Spent His Career Siding With Big Oil & Gas Companies

A new op-ed in NC Newsline is highlighting how North Carolina families are facing rising energy costs, forced to choose “between paying the power bill or putting food on the table, filling prescriptions or covering rent.” 

 

DC insider Michael Whatley spent his career as a Big Oil lobbyist, working to benefit his billionaire and special interests buddies over working families. It’s no wonder Whatley actively pressured North Carolina Republicans to back legislation raising “electricity costs for ordinary Americans.”

 

NC Newsline: When the heat turns on, bills shouldn’t break families

Claire Williamson | February 5, 2026

 

  • As winter drags on, families across North Carolina are feeling the cold…this season doesn’t just mean turning up the heat — it means agonizing choices between paying the power bill or putting food on the table, filling prescriptions or covering rent.

 

  • Duke Energy’s latest proposal to raise rates by 15% over two years threatens to make those choices even harder. […] These numbers may not seem large to some, but for families already living paycheck to paycheck, they can be devastating. Every extra dollar spent on electricity is a dollar taken from groceries, medicine, or childcare. And when the temperatures drop, electricity usage rises — meaning the burden is even heavier in the months when families can least afford it.

 

  • History shows a significant driver of the cost of electricity is the high cost of gas, a burden Duke Energy lays entirely on its customers. Gas prices are unpredictable and expensive, and subject to global market situations beyond our control. Customers are on the hook to pay for every cent of the cost of the fuel to run Duke’s plants. Duke pays nothing. The imbalance of that dynamic is direly unfair to customers.

 

  • Duke Energy should be taking every possible step to lower cost burdens for its customers, not raising rates while planning to invest customer money in expensive gas plants. Families deserve an energy future — and an energy present — that protects them from high bills, not one that locks them into decades of unaffordable costs.

  • This winter, as families across our state struggle to stay warm, we urge Duke Energy and regulators to remember who pays the price for every decision. It’s not shareholders — it’s the households already stretched to the breaking point.


###

Back to news