Delegate Chisholm urges end to EMPOWER surcharge; advocates and regulators push back
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Summary
HB 521 would immediately stop the EMPOWER program and its customer surcharge and seeks to retire remaining EMPOWER debt. Delegate Brian Chisholm called the program an unfair long‑term cost to ratepayers; the Public Service Commission and Sierra Club defended EMPOWER as cost‑effective and warned about unintended bill impacts from removing statutory billing requirements.
Delegate Brian Chisholm told the committee that HB 521 seeks to stop the EMPOWER program and its associated surcharge and to retire outstanding EMPOWER debt, arguing the long‑running program has not delivered promised benefits to low‑income households and that interest costs have accumulated for ratepayers.
Chisholm said the original financing required utilities to advance funding and that ratepayers have paid interest on that deferred amount for years. He cited figures from state reports concerning the total program spend and the portion that reached low‑income households.
Delegate Foley read PSC informational testimony noting that, if the statute’s billing line‑item requirement is removed, the PSC would still need to determine how utilities recover EMPOWER costs and that costs could continue to appear in bills via base rates or other mechanisms. The Sierra Club’s witness, Josh Tolkin, opposed repeal, saying EMPOWER has produced net lifetime savings (testimony cited $15.8 billion lifetime savings on $4.6 billion cost) and remains highly scrutinized for cost effectiveness. Witnesses disagreed on whether removing the surcharge would deliver immediate consumer relief and on how programs and debt would be administered.
No formal committee action or vote was recorded at the hearing.