In a packed committee room at the State House in March, a woman began crying. Her name was Gloria. She shared that she and her husband had undergone several medical operations, sending the couple into financial hardship. She was now looking for a job at age seventy-three and she had recently faced the choice between paying her rent or her utility bills. “I’ve been borrowing from my 98-year-old mother in law because she’s got two pensions plus social security, and I feel horrible doing it,” she said.
Gloria was testifying for House Bill 5245, the Percentage of Income Payment Plan (PIPP). PIPP would cap utility bills at six percent of income for low-income individuals. This policy would offer substantial relief for low-income Rhode Islanders because many low-income Rhode Islanders routinely spend over 40 percent of their income on basic utilities. For a lot of folks, this payment is unsustainable.
Yet the Rhode Island Legislative session ended on June 21st, and PIPP was not among the bills passed. It died in committee.
The RI Legislature’s failure to pass PIPP is disappointing because of the dangers of a utility shut-off. Megan Gilbert from the Economic Progress Institute outlined the stakes in her written testimony. She pointed out that affordable energy allows families to cook nutritious meals, refrigerate medication, regulate temperature, and have lighting at night. In a 1978 decision, the United States Supreme Court wrote, “utility service is a necessity of modern life; indeed, the discontinuance of water or heating for even short periods of time may threaten health and safety.”
The importance of affordable utilities has only increased since then. In written testimony, Nicole DiPaolo from Providence non-profit Roots 2 Empower explained, “As extreme weather increases due to climate change, those with a severe energy burden face a higher risk of adverse health impacts.”
Despite these looming risks and dangers, thousands in Rhode Island struggle with utility payments. This struggle is particularly prevalent in Providence, where, according to the US Census Bureau’s 2020 estimates, 20.1 percent of the population – roughly forty-thousand people – fall below the federal poverty line. Dr. Hans Scholl from the Providence branch of Clean Water Action summarized the situation in his written testimony. “Many of our poorest residents face the cruel choice between either paying for food or heating their homes, because their income doesn’t allow them to pay for both,” he wrote.
Against this backdrop, PIPP has emerged as a popular solution. Its policy is simple: it would cap utility bills at six percent of income for low-income individuals, which is defined by the bill as those under 150 percent of the federal poverty line.
This policy has been tried and tested to success. Several states including New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Illinois, and Pennsylvania have all implemented PIPPs. According to the George Wiley Center, a utility justice organization based in Pawtucket, the PIPP in Illinois lowered energy bills for 90 percent of elderly customers.
PIPP’s wide success and emphasis on equitability make it a solution favored by both justice and climate advocates. Caitlin Sanford from Climate Action Rhode Island argued in written testimony that affordable energy and green energy can and should coexist. “By ensuring that low-income households have access to predictable and manageable energy costs, we create an equitable foundation for achieving our emissions reduction goals,” she wrote.
And yet PIPP has languished in Rhode Island. Legislative efforts to pass it date back at least to 2005, when former Representative Gordon Fox advocated for the policy in a press release. Since then, it has been routinely reintroduced to the General Assembly to no avail. In 2023, Providence Journal reported that Representative Scott Slater has introduced PIPP bills as many as ten times.
What accounts for the delay?
One major roadblock appears to be Rhode Island Energy (RIE).
RIE is the main energy supplier company for the state of Rhode Island. Its parent company, PPL, has already implemented a PIPP in Pennsylvania, and, as of now, it promises to learn from this program and eventually implement a PIPP in Rhode Island. RIE Director of Governance Affairs Nicholas Ucci assured RI lawmakers in written testimony “we are actively working to quantify the potential costs and resources necessary to implement a PIPP for electric and natural gas customers.” Similarly, in spoken testimony, RIE Head of External Affairs Brian Schuster stated, “We actually are doing assessments and studies on looking at the full cost and different constructs of that bill [PIPP] and how it may mature and really how it might materialize in our next rate case.”
However, this promise has been renewed for years without any apparent progress, and RIE has not made their timeline for implementing PIPP clear. In a senate committee meeting in May, Senator Jonathon Acosta described his frustration with this apparent stalling. “We have repeatedly asked them [RIE Energy] why they have been unable to bring it [PIPP] to us,” he said. “And they say ‘we’re working on it, we’re working on it.’… We’re tired of waiting.”
It seems that Rhode Island will have to wait longer still for affordable energy. On March 20th, the House Corporations Committee held HB 5245 for further study. Two months later on May 20th, the Senate Finance Committee also held PIPP’s senate equivalent SB 0185 for further study. Between these tablings and the end of legislative session in June, there was no further action taken on either bill.
It’s possible that the bill may be revived if lawmakers decide to hold a special legislative session in the fall. The future of affordable utilities in Rhode Island hinges on this possibility. Now is the time to demonstrate support for this legislation and to tell our legislators that we are tired of waiting.
Lachlan McCann studies political science and French at Brown University and is an intern at the George Wiley Center.
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