John,

Storms in southeast Michigan have left more than 265,000 customers of the utility DTE Energy without power. Schools are closed due to loss of power, groceries are spoiling, and people are boiling water for safety after water pumping stations lost power.

Although the profit-driven utility keeps raising rates, DTE Energy has failed to invest in critical infrastructure updates, leading to long and frequent power outages. Despite this unreliable service, the utility wants to raise rates again on people in metro Detroit who cannot afford to pay.

Instead, DTE Energy is raking in profits for shareholders, and buying off politicians in order to avoid accountability. In the three-year period between 2017 and 2020, DTE Energy contributed to 96% of Michigan’s lawmakers.

This pattern is happening in states around the country. Utilities keep poisoning our communities by burning fossil fuels, blocking renewable energy, hijacking our state governments, and prioritizing profits over people.

We deserve legislators at all levels of government who will hold energy utilities accountable to the communities they’re supposed to serve.

Please sign now to call on elected officials to reject political contributions from greedy, polluting energy utilities, which are primarily fossil fuel companies. Instead, elected officials must hold these corporate polluters accountable.

Across the country, energy utilities have lobbied against cleaner air standards and against rooftop solar power. Utilities generate most of their power from big fossil fuels, and they want to keep their monopolies over energy production and distribution.

During the pandemic, millions of people have fallen behind on ever-increasing utility bills and face possible shutoffs of their power, water, and gas.

This leaves our most vulnerable communities without vital life-sustaining services, disproportionately impacting communities of color and low-wealth communities, who spend a greater portion of their income on energy bills.

Families with mounting utility debt are not only cut off from services essential to survival, but they also face possible eviction and homelessness. Meanwhile, utility CEOs and investors rake in profits.

Last year, DTE Energy disconnected life-sustaining service for hundreds of thousands of households that could not afford to pay skyrocketing rates, while selling residential customers’ debt to a predatory debt collection firm.

Like many for-profit utilities around the country, DTE Energy funds dark money misinformation campaigns and lobbies state decision-makers. This includes payments to cover golf tournament fees for the chair of the Michigan House Energy Committee, who killed a bill that would have allowed people to generate solar energy on their own property.

We can’t let polluting utilities continue to dictate our public policy and exploit people for profit.

Please sign now to call on elected officials to reject political contributions from greedy, polluting energy utilities and instead hold these corporations accountable.

Thank you. I’ve joined grassroots groups to protest DTE Energy’s new proposed rate hike, and with power outages affecting thousands of people since Monday, that demand is even more urgent.

I’ve also led the fight in Congress to stop utility shutoffs. One of the bills I’ve introduced is the Maintaining Access to Essential Services Act, which would stop utility shutoffs, restore disconnected service, end sales of household utility debt to debt collectors, eliminate household debt for essential utility services (including water and power), and more.

I promise to continue to hold corporate polluters accountable and fight for our right to affordable and reliable utility services.

Always serving you,

Rashida