Cold comfort (continued)
	Down to the details A GUBERNATORIAL COMMITTEE’S PLAN FOR CUTTING HEATING SHUTOFFS HERE IS AN outline of the latest plan to solve the annual problem of heating shutoffs for low-income households falling behind in their utility and oil bills. The program was developed by a committee organized by Governor Donald L. Carcieri and headed by the Reverend John E. Holt, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches. Kenneth Payne, of the state Senate policy office, made changes as he was drafting it as a General Assembly bill. • WHO WOULD BE COVERED? An estimated 11,000 households that have incomes of 125 percent or less than the federal poverty level ($20,371 for a family of three), and who also qualify for grants under the federal Low Income Household Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The purpose is to limit the program to poorest residents. • WHEN WOULD IT START? It’s designed as a three-year "pilot program," which would take effect two winters from now, the season of 2006-2007. However, an emergency fund would help some families get through the coming winter. • HOW IT WOULD WORK? Families would pay four percent of their incomes for heat, and the program would pick up the rest. The theory is that heating costs are beyond the means of poor households, which pay a higher ratio of their limited incomes for heat than do better-off families. • WHAT ABOUT BACK BILLS? Households would pay $10 a month, or $360 over the three years, on back bills that often rise to thousands of dollars. The fund would pick up half of whatever remains. The theory is to require families to pay something of their back bills, but not to burden them indefinitely. • HOW MUCH WOULD IT RAISE? The Senate estimates that nearly $8.8 million would be raised in new money, in addition to money that already comes from the federal heat program and from the utilities themselves. • WHERE WOULD THE MONEY COME FROM? The Holt committee proposed a 1.25 percent surcharge on wholesale heating oil, estimating household bills would go up about $20-24 a year. Senate staffer Payne estimates $2.5 million would be raised. Payne, after consulting New England Gas Company, proposed $2 per household and commercial gas customer monthly, raising $6 million. A small fee would be charged against an electric power fund to raise $250,000 for a few electric heat households. • WHO WOULD CONTROL THE MONEY? An Energy Affordability Fund, quasi-public corporation, would be created. Its eight members would be appointed by the governor, with Senate approval, or would be on the panel by virtue of their state positions. Monies from the gas, oil, and electricity companies would go into separate accounts, supporting customers who use those fuels. The state Public Utilities Commission would approve the Fund’s plans. The idea would be to avoid "cross-subsidies" of different energy sources and to keep the money from being diverted to non-heating uses. • HOW WOULD IT BE RUN? Households would work with Community Action anti-poverty programs and the state Energy Office, both of which already administer LIHEAP. • WHAT ABOUT EMERGENCIES? A $100,000 annual emergency fund would help families make down payments on past-due bills, and provide for sudden changes in income. • WHAT IF HOUSEHOLDS STOP PAYING? Consumers who miss payments for two months would be permanently dropped and required to pay all back bills. — B.C.J.

Oil doesn’t sound eager to be in.

Victor R. Allienello Jr., chairman of the board of the Oil Heat Institute and its legislative point man, questions the very premise of the proposed program: whether the industry should be asked to solve what at its heart is a social problem. "You’re blaming energy as the ill for all social problems," says Allienello, who runs East Providence Fuel Oil Company. He says supermarkets aren’t asked to pay surcharges to buy food for the hungry, and department store sales aren’t assessed to clothe the poor.

At one point, Allienello said the institute would oppose the proposed bill "on its merits," but then said the bill could be improved — for example, by sharply lowering the proposed 1.25 percent heating oil surcharge, which he said would raise much more than the $2.5 million estimated.

There are other problems, he said. Households that use both gas and oil could end up paying both oil and the gas charges, or nearly $50 a year extra, Allienello says. And he said it’s not fair to equate the oil heat industry, made up of competing, smaller companies, with a big gas utility monopoly that can recover losses through rate increases. "I understand what the governor and Reverend Holt are trying to do," Allienello says. "I don’t say that’s bad. But there must be more equitable way of doing it."

Actually, Allienello may have been making assumptions about the governor’s role. Carieri’s spokesman, Jeff Neal, told the Phoenix that the administration had not yet decided whether to support the plan. "The governor’s office has been consulting with the Senate on the bill," Neal says, "and we are waiting for it to take final form before we take any definite position."

Another key player is state Senator William A. Walaska (D-Warwick), chairman of the committee on financial services, technology and regulatory issues, which earlier this year held hearings on the shutoff problem and which will oversee the new measure.

In an interview, Walaska says he personally plans to introduce the bill and to hold at least one hearing. But because it’s so late in the General Assembly session, he’s less optimistic than during the winter that a bill will be passed this year. "I think we have got a good framework," Walaska says. But he noted the still-divergent views on the overall plan, and say that while designed as a pilot program, "it’s probably too big, with 11,000 families."

If it doesn’t go through this year, Walaska says he’s willing work some more on it, through the summer and into the next legislative session.

AN EARLY EVENING meeting in the basement of a South Providence church seems a long way away from the machinations of how a bill becomes law at the State House, with the focus more on that than on the tears that flow when gas doesn’t.

The session, attended by more than 80 people, has been arranged by Henry Shelton, director of the George Wiley Center in Pawtucket, which works on a variety of anti-poverty issues. An ex-priest turning 75, Shelton has obsessively championed heat shutoff reform for decades, utilizing both 1960s-style noisy street protests by squads of poor people, and think-tank sorts of discussions, such as those in which he participated with Reverend Holt’s committee.

This meeting is designed as a group speak-out, part of a mini-campaign to get shut-off families’ gas service restored quickly. Shelton and his activists have been urging state regulators to lower the threshold for getting service turned back on.

Current rules require down payments ranging from 25 to 50 percent of the back bills, plus formal payment plans to repay the remainder over 12 months. Shelton says these terms are impossible for many families, and he wants the down payment threshold lowered to 10 percent, with three years to pay the balances.

Most speakers identify themselves only by their first names. Danielle is a mother of six — her youngest is a baby she carries to the meeting — and she says, "My gas bill is too high," as is the payment plan suggested by the gas company. Joanna was turned off the previous Thursday. Barbara reports that her gas was shut off without advance warning. Another woman is too shy to talk, so somebody tells her story for her while she stands mute. She had faithfully made payments on her gas bill, making sure to get her latest payment to the company before she recently underwent an operation. But when she got home from the hospital, she found the gas had been shut off.

The customer service representative from South Providence steps forward.

"I’ve been shut off since May 4," she begins, speaking through an electronic megaphone. "I go to my parent’s house to shower . . . " Then she abruptly stops and walks away, crying. Later, she and the woman who had the operation embrace, their bodies shaking as they cry together.

Several days later, the South Providence woman is in Warwick, seated in a brightly lit narrow conference room with blank walls at the headquarters of the state Division of Public Utilities and Carriers. The subject is a hearing at which she’s asking the state to have the gas company turn on her gas.

The hearing officer, Linda Roderick, sits at the head of the table, with some files. Mary Conroy, of the gas company credit department is there, too. Both women have calculators. Julie Silvia, a Wiley Center community organizer, accompanies the utility customer.

"What is the reason you are here?" Roderick asks.

"My gas was shut off May 4," the South Providence woman says.

Conroy reports that the gas company calculates her back bill at $1794.70.

"I got a raise at work, then my rent went up. I couldn’t pay any more," the customer service worker says. Under questioning, she says her subsidized rent share now is $430 a month; her electric bill is about $65; cable TV, $50; phone, $33; annual income, $18,000.

Conroy reports that gas company records show says she’s had three shutoffs since 2003. The woman recalls only two. There’s discussion about how much of a down payment is needed to restart service. Conroy settles on $608, lower than the maximum. The woman says "I can’t afford $608."

Conroy does some figuring and says that with a regular annual gas bill estimated at of $1292 a year, plus the remainder of the back bill after the down payment, a 12-month payment plan would require installments of $206

"That’s a lot," the woman says.

"That’s what you actually owe," Roderick says.

Silvia, the organizer, jumps in — promoting the 10 percent down, three years to pay idea. She argues that the woman already has defaulted on her previous payment plan of $180 a month and wonders how she could now be expected to pay even more now.

Roderick, at one point, asks what she could afford.

"I could pay $60, $65," the woman says.

Roderick concludes the hearing by saying she’ll take everything into account that she can and will try to get a decision as soon as possible.

"If you could think about ability to pay . . . " Silvia adds.

As they ride down the elevator, the customer service representative tells Silvia she’s satisfied that she made her case, and says of Roderick: "She was very nice." Silvia agrees.

Later, Thomas Kogut, spokesman for the PUC division, says that 183 similar hearings have been scheduled through July. Of those already held, 1 in 10 has resulted in voluntary payment and restart agreements between the gas company and the consumer.

But Kogut says that thus far no hearing actually has overturned a shutoff.

Brian C. Jones can be reached at brijudy@cox.net