Environmental Defense Fund Policy Director Will Scott on what’s behind rising energy costs

As you’ve no doubt noticed, the first several weeks of 2026 have featured a large complement of wintry and bitterly cold weather and that’s something that’s sure to drive up the electric bills that will soon hit thousands of residential ratepayers. And while there’s nothing that can be done to control the weather, there are steps energy providers and elected officials can take to help minimize electricity rates – most notably, working to shift as quickly as possible to sustainable sources of energy with predictable costs like solar and wind.

Unfortunately, while North Carolina had been moving in that direction, recent political lobbying by Duke Energy has sidetracked those efforts and, as Newsline learned in a recent chat with Will Scott, the North Carolina Policy Director for the Environmental Defense Fund, the result will be more reliance on volatilely priced fossil fuels and a shift in the burden for funding Duke’s profits from industrial and commercial customers to residential consumers.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Will Scott, the North Carolina Policy Director for the Environmental Defense Fund.