Edison International’s CEO says delay on wildfire reform into 2027 will have “significant and costly consequences,” and PG&E’s CEO said the same thing a week ago about her credit rating. Two utilities, two weeks, one sentence. When two companies that compete for nothing but regulatory goodwill start repeating each other, I read it less as lobbying and more as a clock. Everyone is waiting for something, and the something is the first week of 2027.

The odd thing is how many threads are quietly parked behind that date. NextEra and Dominion expect to close in the second half of 2027. CMS Energy’s CEO predicted data center “progress” after the midterms, which is a remarkable thing to say on an earnings call, since it admits the projects are waiting on an election rather than on transformers. The permitting bill got shaken last week by the offshore wind permit fight. Even the climate coverage this morning is mostly guides to which races matter.

Meanwhile the physical stuff doesn’t wait. Xcel is spending $70 billion. GE Vernova is buying wire-and-bushing makers. A piece from EDF and a regional group urges states to scrutinize gas plants proposed over cheaper clean alternatives, which is a polite way of saying the default answer to “we need power” has been a turbine for so long that asking why now counts as a policy position.

I keep picturing a grid where the engineering is on a three-year schedule and the politics is on a two-year one, and the utilities are the only ones holding both calendars. Which of them blinks first?

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