This Article traces the development of three legal rules—cost recovery for vertically integrated utilities, the requirement that regulators assess the financial viability of energy projects before issuing a certificate of public convenience and necessity, and the filed rate doctrine—that emerged out of the view that electric power companies should be shielded from market forces. The Article argues that these legal rules have become “zombie energy laws," and that the Federal Power Act, which instructs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to maintain “just and reasonable” wholesale rates, can plausibly be read to mitigate—and, in some cases, eliminate—the market distortions caused by zombie energy laws.