Urge your members of Congress to co-sponsor the Maintaining Access to Essential Services Act!
John,
We’re in a utility debt and shutoffs crisis.
People across the country have been saddled with billions of dollars of unreasonable water debt during the pandemic. Now, in the midst of another COVID surge, people are suffering water and utility shutoffs – a life-threatening injustice that we can and must stop. It’s time to take action and fight to protect access to essential services.
Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Rashida Tlaib introduced the Maintaining Access to Essential Services Act, which would provide nearly $40 billion to help wipe away household water, power and broadband debt across the country. The bill aims to include a moratorium on all utility shutoffs in the pending infrastructure package – a critical action necessary to protect vulnerable families and reduce further spread of COVID-19.
The Maintaining Access to Essential Services Act (HR 4979) provides:
$13.5 billion to address water debt
$13 billion for electricity debt
$13 billion for broadband internet debt
The legislation also establishes reporting requirements about disconnections and debt due to missing payments. This debt relief and accompanying shutoff protection will protect struggling households and help prevent the spread of COVID.
Last year, with your help we stopped water service shutoffs in more than 800 communities and states, protecting two-thirds of the country. But since then, shutoff moratoria that were in place have expired, and more than 72 million people have lost the protections we helped win.
Studies have found that moratoria on utility shutoffs reduced the spread of COVID and deaths linked to the virus. One report from Food & Water Watch and Cornell University found that a nationwide water shutoff moratorium during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic might have prevented 9,000 deaths and nearly 500,000 COVID infections.
This research, which was recently published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, shows the pain and suffering caused by the COVID pandemic were made worse because political leaders failed to take action by issuing a national utility shutoff moratorium that would have kept the water on for so many struggling families. Without running water to wash their hands, families are left vulnerable to becoming sick as the rampant spread of COVID continues.
The time is past due for our political leaders to take action. Communities urgently need the Maintaining Access to Essential Services Act to keep the water, power and broadband on, and forgive crushing household utility debt.
Food & Water Action and its affiliated organization, Food & Water Watch, are advocacy groups with a common mission to protect our food, water and climate.
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