Committee hears PUC study recommending against a broad electric-affordability program

Lawmakers reviewed a Public Utility Commission (PUC) study and discussed whether the committee should pursue legislative changes to limit utility shutoffs.

Speaker 4 summarized the PUC's finding: "The study concluded when our PUC recommended to not create a new broad based electric affordability program because there's already multiple programs that support this." Committee members noted that heating and transportation costs, not electricity alone, were the study's larger burden points.

Separately, Speaker 1 relayed a constituent case in which a tenant who paid utilities through rent lost refrigerated food when the landlord failed to pay the bill. "She was paying for utilities in her rent, and her landlord did not pay the utility bill," Speaker 1 said. The committee observed that small-claims court may be the only clear remedy in such landlord-tenant disputes and that a blanket no-shutoff rule could decrease payment incentives and complicate utilities' budgeting.

Members balanced competing goals: protecting medically vulnerable residents during heat waves and avoiding policy that creates widespread nonpayment. Speaker 1 warned that a no-shutoff policy can produce perverse incentives — some customers might delay payment if consequences were removed — and that any broad prohibition could require subsidies to cover utility revenue shortfalls.

The committee asked staff to invite the PUC to brief members on the study's findings and the existing suite of programs the PUC cited, and to return with options that clarify who would be covered and how enforcement or subsidies might work.