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Committee hears testimony on H.753 to limit utility disconnections and track outages
Summary
At a Feb. 5 House Energy and Physical Infrastructure hearing, advocates and service providers urged support for H.753, a bill that would require tracking utility disconnections and offer limited protections for vulnerable households; witnesses cited rising arrears, individual hardship cases, and gaps in current assistance programs.
The House Energy and Physical Infrastructure Committee heard public testimony on Feb. 5, 2026, on H.753, a bill intended to limit utility disconnections and require utilities to track disconnection incidents as a performance metric.
Why this matters: Witnesses told the committee that disconnections cascade into other harms — lost refrigeration for medication, inability to charge phones and work devices, and added stress for families with young children — and argued current nonprofit supports cannot meet rising need. The bill aims to make disconnections visible and encourage utility practices that prevent immediate shutoffs for vulnerable customers.
Advocates’ testimony: Richard Foote, a witness supporting the bill, described local assistance efforts through the Joint Urban Ministries Project and his church’s emergency fund and said national data show deep need: “In June, July 2025,…
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