“It is long past time to give North Carolina’s citizens the help they desperately need on their skyrocketing energy bills.”
Clean energy advocates are speaking up in defense of a key state effort to aid low-income electric customers in dealing with the onslaught of new Duke Energy rate hikes. They are fighting back against a corporate polluter-driven attack on the ability of the N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC) to assess a small fee on all customers’ bills for use in protecting the most economically vulnerable families from the hardships of rising electric costs.
“A powerful consortium of pulp mills, pipe foundries and other manufacturers has moved to block an aid program for Duke Energy’s poorest residential customers — provoking dismay among the clean energy advocates who had championed it.” The program, approved by the NCUC as a part of its recent order on Duke Energy’s requested rate hike, is poised to begin helping an estimated 100,000+ households already struggling to pay their electric bills.
Clean energy advocates are fighting back against the ideologically charged efforts of the so-called “Carolina Industrial Group for Fair Utility Rates” (CIGFUR) to have the N.C. Supreme Court halt the order from going into effect while it seeks to have it overturned. “The Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of N.C. Justice Center, N.C. Housing Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and Vote Solar, alongside the Sierra Club, have both requested that the NCUC move forward with the CAP regardless of CIGFUR’s court challenge because CIGFUR’s challenge is likely to fail and the CAP is sorely needed to help people survive Duke’s rate increase in the immediate future.”
“It’s a tragedy to witness a group of large industrial players go out of their way to fight a monthly fee less than the price of a single cup of coffee, which would greatly help the state’s most vulnerable citizens,” said Jake Duncan, Regulatory Director for Vote Solar. “The ratemaking process has long been an inequitable one. Regulatory spaces can be too costly for the state’s most disadvantaged communities to access and, as a result, their needs and voices are often not heard. It’s time for fairness and compassion to prevail over profit-motivated self-interest.”
Michelle (Meech) Carter, Clean Energy Campaign Director for the N.C. League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV), agreed: “Many North Carolinians are faced with a challenge: pay their energy bills or put food on the table for their children. The customer assistance program would give much-needed help to the North Carolinians who need it most. Despite this need, CIGFUR’s challenge to the customer assistance program is a blatant ploy for profit– down to literal dollars and cents. Industrial customers already enjoy lower rates than residential customers, and it is long past time to give North Carolina’s citizens the help they desperately need on their skyrocketing energy bills. This is a clear example of unchecked corporate greed by large industrial customers and is yet another attempt to curtail the power of our state Boards and Commissions.”
