Let's hold massive utility corporations accountable
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Environmental Champion,
We can no longer accept the status quo when it puts our communities in danger.
Private energy utilities across the state might be able to disconnect households from power during the COVID-19 pandemic. Private energy utilities like Puget Sound Energy also want their customers to pay 100% of the costs of the pandemic.
While families are making impossible choices between feeding their families and keeping a roof over their heads, Puget Sound Energy’s top four executives made almost $20 million in compensation last year, and the Utilities and Transportation Commission guaranteed PSE’s shareholders a 9.4% return on equity.
Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) regulates private, investor-owned energy utilities. Over the next two weeks they will make decisions about: when utilities may start disconnecting households from power due to non-payment, whether utilities may institute bill assistance programs that erase the utility debt of low-income households, and whether utilities will pay their fair share of COVID-19 pandemic-related costs.
Join us in making your voice heard to protect everyone’s essential utility service!
Submit comments to the UTC by next Wednesday, September 30th. Share your story about why this issue is important to you, and join us in asking the UTC to:
- Keep Washington families connected to power for the duration of the pandemic and through economic recovery. This includes, at a minimum, guaranteeing service until all counties in a utility’s service district are in Phase 4 of Governor Inslee’s Safe Start Plan.
- Support low-income families by approving the Commission staff’s proposal for each utility to provide up to $2,500 in bill assistance to erase debt for households earning up to 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
- Require utilities pay their fair share. This includes prohibiting deferred accounting petitions regarding late payment fees and reconnection charges that utilities are legally prohibited from collecting during the pandemic by Governor Inslee’s Proclamation.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and neither can be the protections we need to weather this crisis. Tell the UTC to protect Washingtonians’ utilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thanks for all you do,
Eleanor Bastian
Climate and Clean Energy Policy Manager
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1402 Third Avenue, Suite 1400 | Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 631-2600 | [email protected]
