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Maine lawmakers hear bill to bar utilities from requiring deposits based only on income
Summary
Representative Melanie Sachs and a coalition of public-health and anti-poverty groups urged lawmakers to remove a PUC rule that lets utilities demand deposits from new residential applicants who report no income, saying the policy burdens a small number of vulnerable people while offering little protection to ratepayers.
Representative Melanie Sachs, sponsor of LD 10 80, opened the public hearing by asking the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology to remove a single provision in Public Utilities Commission rule Chapter 815 that allows a utility to require a security deposit when a new residential applicant reports having “no income.”
Sachs said she encountered the issue during research into economic security and public-health screening and described examples — recent graduates, asylum seekers, gig workers and survivors of abuse — who might say they have “no income” despite having some means to pay bills. “Out of 89,000 new residential contract accounts created in 2024, only 300 declared no income and required deposits,” Sachs told the committee, quoting data supplied by Central Maine Power (CMP).
The hearing centered on whether the practice is justified as a credit- risk safeguard, and on its practical effect on people newly establishing service. Heather Sanborn, Maine’s public advocate, said existing Maine statutes presume residential customers should not be charged a…
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