By McKenzie Romero | Editor
The proposal started at 30.5%. Rocky Mountain Power later dropped its plan for a rate increase for Utah customers to 18.1%, an amount Gov. Spencer Cox called “completely unacceptable.”
After a response from the Legislature and a bid to the Utah Supreme Court, the utility is now presenting a pitch to settle the issue with a smaller increase on top of what was approved last year.
In today’s Dispatch we look at what could be coming for many Utah power customers, Western emergency experts’ concerns that federal disaster response is uneven across the country, and an analysis of where judges are releasing immigrants from detention.
“This is a strong and balanced outcome for Utah. It delivers what our customers consistently tell us they want most — stable and predictable costs, reliable service and continued investment in the communities we serve.” — Dick Garlish, president of Rocky Mountain Power, on the utility’s propsal to settle its rate increase.
A Rocky Mountain Power substation in downtown Salt Lake City is pictured on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Alixel Cabrera
A thorny process over a Utah electricity rate increase may be coming to an end after Rocky Mountain Power proposed a settlement with the Utah Public Service Commission to add a 4.2% rate hike on top of the 4.7% increase commissioners approved last year.
However, coincidentally, the increase will come at the same time customers will see a 10.6% decrease in energy charges on their bill because of market adjustments structures, which “will reduce a typical residential customer’s monthly bill by about $11 per month.” So, ultimately, the impact of the two actions will result in an overall net decrease for customers, the company said.
Emergency management experts from Western states discussed efforts at FEMA reform and the agency’s continued lack of wildfire focus. ((Ellen Jaskol for the Western Governors' Association)
SOURCE NEW MEXICO
By Patrick Lohmann
A group of emergency management experts from Western states convening in Utah said Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency continues to prioritize hurricanes and other Eastern perils over much more common wildfires in the West.
A bipartisan group of Western governors gathered in Deer Valley discussed “The Road Ahead for FEMA” after a report found FEMA’s grant program that helps state and local governments prevent and limit damage from natural disasters concentrates on hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, leaving “gaps” when it comes to wildfires, drought and earthquakes.
A detainee stands silhouetted in a window of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, N.J., on May 28, 2026. (Photo by Anne-Marie Caruso/New Jersey Monitor)
STATELINE
By Tim Henderson
U.S. district judges are questioning the idea that immigrants should be incarcerated indefinitely at the whim of the executive branch. Stateline reviewed every immigrant habeas petition case decided in a single day — June 16 — across the country, in order to sample judicial opinion.
Of the cases that were decided that day, the review found 142 instance when judges released detainees immediately or ordered bond hearings, and denied them only 36 times. Many of the judges, even Republican appointees, argued that unlimited detention was unconstitutional.
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