Duke says: “We have to balance providing affordable, reliable and increasingly clean electricity to our customers, and at the same time provide a return to our shareholders.” So clean energy and Duke shareholders have to get their cuts; captive consumers might as well wake up and smell the monopoly.

But don’t you worry, dear ratepayers; your media, friendly Democrats, and the Republican House leadership all want you to understand these consecutive double-digit rate hike requests have nothing to do with the renewable energy mandate passed in 2007. Why, in fact, that’s making electricity, um, cheaper, yeah, that’s the ticket!

P.S. Duke subsidiary Progress Energy just got its first rate hike in a quarter century “to help the company as it transitions to cleaner energy.”