The utility industry is quietly dispatching a network of front groups to thwart the growing push for public power across the US a push that comes amid mounting frustration over sky-high utility bills, electric outages, a slow transition to clean energy and private utilities' soaring profits. Communities from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to San Diego, California, and St Petersburg, Florida, are exploring municipalizing their grids to join the country's approximately 2,000 public power companies. Municipal utilities " or "munis" " are owned and operated by local authorities and broadly have lower rates, better reliability scores and are structurally more accountable to customers. The industry front group operations aim to counter that narrative in a high-stakes fight " private utilities stand to lose billions of dollars in revenue should communities municipalize. Advocates say the front groups at times have resorted to especially unusual measures " in St Petersburg, for example, the industry allegedly recruited some of their canvassers from the parking lots of plasma centers where people donate plasma for money. Federal data shows public power companies' bills, on average, are about 14% lower than private. That is in part because private utility profits that go to Wall Street investors are baked into customers' bills. Public power companies do not need to earn those profits, and excess revenue is typically invested in the grid or used to lower customers' bills.