Community Voices at the Table: CEEN at MARC 2025
At the Community Energy Engagement Network (CEEN), we’re working to transform how energy regulation happens by putting people first, especially those most impacted by energy injustice. We believe the communities most burdened by high utility bills, shutoffs, and underinvestment must also have a hand in shaping the systems that impact their everyday lives. CEEN was created to build access, trust, and power at the intersection of community leadership, regulatory engagement, and energy justice.
One way CEEN moves this mission forward is by investing in grassroots organizers, frontline leaders, and BIPOC-led organizations to attend and engage in utility regulatory spaces. These hearing rooms, conferences, and executive meetings have historically excluded community voices. One of those spaces is the Mid-America Regulatory Conference (MARC), a key gathering of utility commissioners, energy executives, and regulatory staff from across 13 Midwestern states.
Photo courtesy of Amani Sawari, We Want Green Too.
Just last month, thanks to our partners at Black Sunlight Sustainability and RE-AMP, CEEN was empowered to proudly support several grassroots groups to attend MARC and bring their lived experience into direct conversation with decision-makers. Among them was Amani Sawari and her team at We Want Green Too, a community-rooted organization working at the intersection of environmental and racial justice.
Amani brought a powerful and much-needed perspective to a space that too often operates without it. In her post-MARC reflection, Amani wrote:
“Leaving marginalized communities out of the energy conversations being held between utility regulators and CEOs is a disservice to more than the ratepayers who can’t help but feel overwhelmed with the burden of mounting costs on their monthly bills. It also places regulators in the failing position of translating the benefits of costly systems to ratepayers who lack trust in their decision-making fueled by misrepresentation and misunderstanding. It also places CEOs in the adversarial position of greedy business owners with tens of millions of dollar salaries exploiting the limited wages of those residents they seek to serve.”
This clarity, urgency, and lived truth is exactly what CEEN is working to bring into regulatory spaces because without it, decisions are made in a vacuum. Read Amani’s full reflection on MARC and the experience of being in the room, on the
We Want Green Too blog. Want to hear more from Amani? She’ll be featured in future newsletters!
Photo courtesy of Amani Sawari, We Want Green Too.
Why CEEN’s Work Matters
Amani’s reflections show exactly why CEEN exists. We’re not here to just get people in the room—we’re here to shift who shapes the agenda. By supporting leaders like Amani to step into regulatory spaces and speak truth to power, we’re building toward a fundamentally different energy system. One that is community-informed, transparent, and just.
Her presence at MARC was powerful, but this is only the beginning. CEEN will continue to open doors, share knowledge, and grow a network of advocates across the Midwest who are equipped to drive bold, community-rooted energy solutions. Because when the people are in the room, everything changes.