Janine Jackson interviewed the Energy and Policy Institute’s Shelby Green and the Center for Biological Diversity’s Selah Goodson Bell about utility shutoffs and profiteering for the February 3, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: Some 4 million US households have had their electricity cut off in recent years. But before you say “Russia” or “Covid,” our guests would have you understand that it has something to do with the utility business model that we use in this country, for energy and electricity, and that that model is broken, and worthy of reconsideration.
Bailout Watch et al (1/30/23)
Shelby Green is research fellow at the Energy and Policy Institute. Selah Goodson Bell is energy justice campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, and they’re both behind a new report called Powerless that is out from Biological Diversity and Bailout Watch. They both join us by phone. I’m happy to have you here, Shelby Green and Selah Goodson Bell.
Selah Goodson Bell: Happy to join.
Shelby Green: Thank you for inviting us.
JJ: Let’s just get into the content of the report. What do you mean by “powerless”? What is the problem that you’re describing? I think a lot of folks might think, oh, my lights blink out for a minute. Losing power is much, much more than that. And it’s life or death in some cases, yes?
SGB: Yeah, that’s well-said. Zoom out a little bit, I just wanted to share, this report is the third in a series that’s been tracking this issue, specifically the extent to which profit-driven utilities have been cutting off families’ basic human right to electricity and heat millions of times a year, while at the same time shelling out billions to their shareholders and executives.
We started tracking this in the pandemic, but it’s a pretty egregious injustice and has continued since. It’s still happening today. Most recently, we’ve seen that houses were cut off of electricity about 5.7 million times since 2020. And that’s a low-end number, as about 20 states don’t even provide information on household disconnections. And that’s about 40% of states that we’ve found.
And so all of the numbers and figures we’re going to share today are just a small scope of the issue. They don’t represent the full scope, and that’s also going to be something we talk about a little bit more: data transparency.
And at the heart of our report, it’s basically a desire to expose the utility industry’s greedy profiteering that’s ultimately driving the shutoffs crisis and energy insecurity.
JJ: I wanted to just, actually, you very forward, in the report, connect electric and gas service shutoffs and profiteering, and I think there’s a reason that you connect those two things.
SG: Yeah, I think most consumers really don’t realize what is happening when it comes to their utility bill, or the energy system that we have designed in America.
Most utilities, they’re able to get a rate of return from their customers, and they’re not really concerned about providing power, or ensuring that everyone has access to power. They’re more concerned about making sure they’re making enough money to give to their shareholders.
And so what we really wanted to highlight within this report is that not only are disconnections happening across the country, especially during a time where people are experiencing such high economic uncertainty, but they are also happening because of rising prices of gas, and utilities are heavily reliant on gas, and are building infrastructure and gas-fired power plants that will cause utility bills to increase further, and also cause customers to have to pay for these rate increases.
And so we really wanted to make the connection between consumers, the price of the utility bill, and also this model that is in need of reform in America.
JJ: Absolutely. And I think that’s not a connection that mainstream news media are making. In other words, we’re hearing prices are rising, and that’s hurting you, but we’re not necessarily connecting that to profit-making by utility corporations.
And so I appreciate the connection that you’re making there, but I just wonder if you could spell out–we’re not talking about a few more pennies at the pump. We’re talking about, in many cases, this is about whether people can do what they need to do to survive.
Selah Goodson Bell: “Last year, one in five American households struggled to pay for an energy bill, but that rate was 50% higher for households of color.”
SGB: I think framing it that way is really important. People seem to take for granted how important electricity is for physical safety; for food security, keeping your food refrigerated; for medical care, if you have medicine that needs to be refrigerated; and also for telecommunications.
And the nexus with disconnects and arrears is, when people are forced to bear those costs and have their service severed, it makes it also harder for them to maintain employment. It makes it harder for them to keep their kids in school. It can make it more difficult to get a loan or a mortgage. And so we really wanted to highlight how this energy and security issue just has tendrils into other ways that social instability can manifest, and how the utility industry is really complicit in that.
And, of course, the impacts of this are most disproportionately felt in households of color. We found that last year, one in five American households struggled to pay for an energy bill, but that rate was 50% higher for households of color, and a big reason has to do with some of the lingering impacts of redlining, and basically a lot of households of color might live in structurally deficient housing that ends up costing more to keep warm or cool, which is especially costly and dangerous in the wake of climate disasters like heat waves, freezes, etc.
They’re already hit the hardest, and are less likely to get the resources they need as early as they need. But then when it comes to the increases in energy demand that come with coping from those extreme weather disasters, we’re seeing households of color also get the short end of the stick. So that’s something that we also wanted to highlight, and really show the utility industry’s role in that factor.
And again, like Shelby said, since they’re continuing to invest in fossil gas infrastructure, but are completely disconnected from the implications of that, that itself is also exacerbating the climate emergency.
Shelby Green: “If just 12 utilities took 1% of their dividends that they paid out to shareholders, that could have covered the cost, that could have prevented disconnections.”
SG: And just to bring it back to profit for a minute, disconnections across the country, as we outlined in the report, occurred over 1.5 million times in just the first 10 months of 2022.
If just 12 utilities took 1% of their dividends that they paid out to shareholders, that could have covered the cost, that could have prevented disconnections. But now they’re also passing on the cost of rising fuel to their customers through rate increases for fuel rider adjustments.
So utility executives, they are not doing their part in making sure that they’re keeping the cost low for consumers. They’re not doing their part in making sure that consumers that fall behind can get access to relief dollars. And they’re also not doing their part in communicating properly why consumers’ utility bills are going up.
So there’s a really big problem here with utilities. They’re not really providing the public with an affordable or reliable service. And regulators, public service commissions, are not doing a good enough job requiring utilities to do that.
So there really is this broken system where the consumer gets hurt every single time. And so we really wanted to highlight in this report that you’re not alone when you say that you can’t afford your utility bill, or when you say that you have to use your credit card to pay for an essential service.
There are millions of people across the country who are having that same plight, and we need to start looking at utilities and their regulators, and how they are able to uphold this system that hurts the everyday American.
JJ: We hear that the role of journalism is to break stuff down for us. We can’t be in those boardrooms, we can’t be in those corporate decision-making rooms. And so we rely on journalists to break it down and explain to us as a consumer, or as a worker, what that means to us.
And so what’s so great about this report is it does break it down. You and I know folks will read the media. They’ll understand that prices are higher for them. They’ll understand that energy prices are higher for them. But they’re going to be told that it has to do with, you know, Russia or Covid or mysterious winds from the West, when actually there are systems that we can talk about, and that we have levers to control.
From Powerless in the United States (1/30/23)
SG: Yeah. And there’s a lack of accountability and transparency. And Selah can talk about this more, but while we were collecting this data, I mean, I live in Florida, and Florida utilities were only required to report disconnections during a very brief period during the pandemic, and then they stopped reporting this data in October of 2021.
But we also know that Florida Power & Light, one of the biggest utilities in the state, they performed almost a million shutoffs during that reporting period, and now we have no idea how many people they’re cutting off again.
So what’s frustrating is that there are people who think that they’re just alone in this process of not being able to afford their utility bills. And there’s also a factor of shame associated with that, not being able to afford your most basic bill, not being able to keep the power on in your house, not being able to cook food, because you have no electricity.
There’s a lot of shame associated with not being able to do the bare minimum, and people think that it’s their fault, but they’re not the only ones to bear this blame. There are utilities and regulators and state legislators who also should be bearing this responsibility, and thinking about: what can we put in place to make sure consumers are being protected?
So in states like Virginia, there’s a bill that’s going through the general assembly that is trying to pause disconnections during a state of emergency. Also, in North Carolina, there is a moratorium in place during winter, so when the weather reaches a certain point, you won’t be disconnected because of the temperature.
Those are protections that should be given to every American across this country. It should not be utility-specific or state-specific. It should be a protection that everyone can receive, because everyone does deserve that right to know, even when you are struggling, you do have protection still.
JJ: Selah, can you add to that? And also I love that you would name the names, you have a hall of shame. There are folks who are doing better and worse on this, in terms of just acknowledging what Shelby has just talked about. It’s a reality for many people, and they shouldn’t be punished by having their freaking lights turned off.
So, immediate action, thoughts?
SGB: Yeah, definitely can add to that. And also in the spirit of naming, I can list a couple of who those hall of shame utility companies were. Some of the top three this year were Exelon, Southern Co. and DTE Energy. And NextEra and Duke last year were two of our worst. But as Shelby mentioned, in Florida, since they no longer require utilities to report on household disconnections, we didn’t have any access to that data.
If NextEra were to continue the disconnection rate it had last year, they would’ve definitely topped our list this year. But even without that, they still made the top 12, when we look back from 2020 through October of last year. These dozen companies were responsible for 86% of the power shutoffs we saw.
So it’s a small number of companies that are just causing a massive amount of harm. Again, like Shelby said, it would’ve only taken 1% of the amount spent on shareholder dividends to prevent those disconnections. And so it’s truly inexcusable, and is a result of their corporate greed.
In terms of immediate actions, another state we want to lift up as an example of their regulators and their legislators actually putting money behind this issue is New York. They actually recently forgave the utility debt of almost 480,000 customers through May of last year, recognizing the different crises that were present, that of the climate crisis, in terms of Covid, and this is like a one-time payment, and they also did the same for low-income customers last summer.
But what we’re asking for is a broader forgiveness of utility debt that Congress can hopefully institute by taxing utility profits. As we just saw, it won’t even take that much to stop utility shutoffs, but when it comes to arrearages, it’s a much bigger issue. And that continues to mount.
Again, like Shelby was outlining, it doesn’t take a disconnection for someone to suffer from the punitive financial measures that these utilities are imposing. And so some other solutions we’re proposing, again, is some disconnection data transparency. In that light, we’re hoping that the Energy Information Administration or state utility commissions are able to mandate these utilities to start tracking and disclosing power and gas shutoff data on a monthly basis, and also include zip code and demographic data, so we know who is being impacted and where.
And we’re also hoping to just institute a shutoff ban. As Shelby said, it shouldn’t be limited to specific times of the year, specific temperatures, or specific states or utilities. Everyone has a right to access electricity and heat.
I already mentioned utility debt forgiveness, but I’m also hoping that Congress boosts funding for LIHEAP and WAP, the Weatherization Assistance Program.
And finally, we’re really trying to start a narrative around the need to really get off of this obsession with fossil fuels. We see how volatile fossil fuel prices are, but we also see how, again, they are what drives the climate emergency, and we’re hoping that the Biden administration uses its executive powers to halt new fossil fuel production and infrastructure.
There are a couple others we could go through, but I know I’ve been talking for a minute, so I don’t know, Shelby, if you wanted to add anything in that light.
SG: I thought that was a great listing.
JJ: Yeah. Let me just ask you both, in terms of journalists, because it seems like you’re in another world, in some ways, than the way that corporate media discuss things.
This kind of conversation is largely off the page, and so I would like to ask you both– obviously folks who are media consumers are also the same folks who might have their lights shut off, you know? But then they pick up the paper, and the paper tells them what the problem is and what the solution is.
And I would like to ask you both: What would you have journalists do? Who would you have them talk to? What questions would you have them ask that could turn this conversation around? And how do we reorient folks to the conversation that might change things?
SG: I think where journalists can start is just going up to people in parking lots, or people at the park, asking them, have you looked at your utility bill lately? Have you noticed any changes in your utility bill?
When I first started learning about shutoffs and utility bills, that’s what I did. I had a petition. I went to the park. I was asking people if they’ve noticed a difference in their utility bill, if they’ve accrued any debt during the pandemic. And I was asking them to sign a petition to make sure my city extended a moratorium, so people didn’t lose power.
So where journalists can start is just start talking to everyday people, and get them to look at things that they’ve stopped looking at, potentially. Not a lot of people look at the fees or charges that are hidden within their utility bill.
And so, yeah, I would just encourage journalists to get everyday residents to start thinking about energy, looking at their utility bill, even scheduling tours with their local utility, and understanding, where does the fuel come from, and what are the factors that are set in place that impact my utility bill?
But there’s not enough everyday people who are thinking about energy, and I don’t blame them. It’s a very difficult topic. Most people just turn on the switch, and that’s the most thinking they do about it. And then when you try to start looking at things, it’s a little bit complicated, because you don’t have access to utility executives, and you don’t understand what decisions they’re making that influence your bill at the end of the day.
So journalists really are the middlemen between the everyday people and the people in power, and the people that sit on those boardrooms for utilities. Those are the spaces where journalists need to be, and they need to disseminate this information in a more direct way to everyday consumers, so they really understand what’s impacting my utility bill, and what can I do to make sure that it’s not increasing.
Like right now across the country, there are utilities who are requesting rate increases from their public service commissioners. That information needs to be disseminated to everyday people, and people need to feel like they have a voice in the process.
They should use this voice. They should file testimony in these rate cases, and they should be more engaged. If we’re not engaged with society, then utilities will continue to do whatever they want, and that will impact us in a negative way.
JJ: Selah Goodson Bell, final thoughts?
SGB: Yeah, that was well said. I don’t have much to add; I just want to echo that last point that Shelby was talking about, of basically opening up the Pandora’s box of what the public service commission is doing and the hearings that they have. These are public hearings that folks don’t have access to, or, like Shelby was saying, they might be talking about topics that feel out of touch, that feel wonky, but know they are topics that affect people on a daily basis.
And I think journalists can do a better job of trying to break those topics down, and know that those are spaces where folks need to be. And so trying to uplift folks in those spaces, but then also translating a lot of the admittedly wonky topics that we’re talking about in a way that everyday people can understand, and feel pressured to get engaged on, so that they can actually hold these utilities accountable and, again, hold their regulators accountable.
JJ: I’d like to thank you both very much. We’ve been speaking with Shelby Green, research fellow at the Energy and Policy Institute, and Selah Goodson Bell, energy justice campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. Thank you both so very much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
SG: Yeah. Thank you for having us.
SGB: Thank you.
The post ‘Everyone Has a Right to Electricity and Heat’ appeared first on FAIR.
This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.
Janine Jackson | Radio Free (2023-02-10T19:12:42+00:00) ‘Everyone Has a Right to Electricity and Heat’ – CounterSpin interview with Shelby Green and Selah Goodson Bell on utility shutoffs and profiteering. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/10/everyone-has-a-right-to-electricity-and-heat-counterspin-interview-with-shelby-green-and-selah-goodson-bell-on-utility-shutoffs-and-profiteering/
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