Chairman and Members of the Committee,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on electric utility policy in Wyoming. My name is Travis Fisher, and I am the director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute. Cato is a nonpartisan public policy research organization dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. At Cato, my research focuses on the role of free markets in improving the availability and affordability of energy and natural resources.

I have worked at the intersection of the electricity industry and public policy for 20 years, including leadership roles at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Electricity Consumers Resource Council. My work follows the advice of economist Frederic Bastiat, who implored us to treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer.

At Cato, I recently published a briefing paper titled “The Case for Consumer-Regulated Electricity: Private Electricity Grids Offer a Parallel Path to Energy Abundance,” which examines a framework for private electricity networks and highlights how Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE) can address the concerns associated with rapid growth in industrial electricity demand.