Thursday, December 15, 2005
No gas for YOU!
When I first read the headline for this, I though "Isn't there a Law or policy against shutting off the gas in the middle of the winter when children/elderly are involved?". Well, yes, as noted previously.
Technorati Tags: Winter | Politics | Gas
- Since Jan. 10, the Gas Works has sent out more than 5,000 warnings to delinquent customers who could face shutoff. Spokesman Douglas Oliver said that PGW cut off service last week to 16 households - the first winter terminations in decades not to require PUC approval.
Oliver said the Gas Works was setting its initial sights on the worst cases: people who owe large amounts and have income that is at least three times the federal poverty rate.
And for now, PGW is targeting households that have no members 12 or under or 65 or over.
But it is not making any promises.
- Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/15/2005 | Heating shutoffs expected to jump
This week's wave of arctic cold punctuates a chilling fact: Thousands of area residents are facing winter with no reliable source of heat.
And with natural-gas and oil prices near record heights, plus a new Pennsylvania law that has ended a 30-year moratorium on most wintertime shutoffs, the problem could soon get worse.
The state's utilities are due to report today to the Public Utility Commission on their annual survey of households without heat at the start of December - a survey that last year showed that 15,005 households statewide, more than a third of them in Philadelphia, lacked gas or electricity that they use for heat.
<...>
Oliver said record numbers of shutoffs after the law was phased in last winter were followed by record numbers of reconnections.
Avocates for the poor and for other consumers say that no matter what numbers are reported by the utilities today, they are likely to understate a problem that has been growing steadily in recent years. From 1999 through 2003, an average of fewer than 10,000 households started winter without utility service.
Last year, besides the 15,005 dwellings without gas and electric service, utilities reported an additional 14,595 homes excluded from the totals as vacant because no one responded to knocking or phone calls during the utilities' door-to-door survey of disconnected customers.
<...>
Edith, a South Philadelphia resident who asked not to be fully identified, has been living without gas since August, when she fell behind on her $123-a-month payments under one of PGW's low-income discount programs.
The utility is demanding a $500 payment, which she hopes to get through LIHEAP, the government's Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Until then, she is trying hard to keep her house livable for herself, her daughter and three grandchildren.
<...>
Utility officials say they will try to work with people who respond to warnings of termination. PGW pushed for the new law, Act 201, in part by arguing that city residents had come to regard the company as a pushover.
"Act 201 is doing what we hoped," said Oliver, the PGW spokesman. "It's changing people's behaviors."
<...>
PGW has indicated a reluctance to take any costly steps. According to the PUC, PGW promised only to abide by the shutoff law's limits on reconnection costs. "Due to its financial condition, PGW does not have any plans for being less restrictive" than the new law allows, the analysis said.
PGW earned $17.2 million in 2004, but carried long-term debt of more than $913 million. The city-owned utility was placed on a credit watch this year by the Fitch Ratings service.
In a letter to Rendell dated Tuesday and provided to The Inquirer, PGW president Thomas Knudsen did not back away from that position, but struck a cooperative tone. Knudsen promised an aggressive media and outreach campaign to sign low-income customers for discounts, and to promote conservation.
Consumer advocates such as Jonathan Stein, a Community Legal Services lawyer who has fought PGW over its push for the new shutoff law and its interpretation of key provisions, remain critical.
"PGW isn't giving an inch," Stein said.
Technorati Tags: Winter | Politics | Gas
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