American Electric Power said last year that it plans to spend $23.3 billion between 2022 and 2026 on transmission and distribution. But there’s been growing concern at the state and federal level that too much of it is occurring without enough transparency and oversight to ensure transmission owners are appropriately planning for new technology, considering more cost-effective regional approaches or alternate solutions and not ripping off their ratepayers.

“This is something that a lot of us in the policy world have already known for a long time — that when Congress failed to act on expanding or continuing the monthly child tax credit payments that were part of the American Rescue Plan, that a lot of Michigan kids and families were going to suffer as a result,” Anne Kuhnen, a tax policy analyst for the Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP), said.