The power companies here are privately owned, and America has a lot of laws dealing with what the government can and can not tell private companies what to do. Most of the laws deal with what the government cannot do. Basically, the company sells electricity at cost, then sends the government a letter that’s like, “Hey, we need $$$ for repairs, upgrades, and stock holders. Here’s all the upgrades we want.” And the government is like “Sure, this is America, gotta turn a profit,” and gives the utility companies whatever they ask for. Then the utility companies just give all the money to the stock holders, perform the bare minimum repairs to operate, and just lie to the government about what they did with the money. There is an especially egregious case in South Carolina where a utility claimed for years that they were going to build a nuclear plant to help meet energy demands in the area. Well after an audit, turns out the owner just pocketed all that money. That guy was punished, but see how bad it has to get before anything happens?

This video does a much better job at explaining it than I ever could. It’s long, but they explain how utilities make a profit in the first 15 mins. https://youtu.be/2n_au5Hje_E?si=S9e8o7QQpFjueZta