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House wants CUC reconnection fee waived for poor customers
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Posted on Aug 05 2008
The House of Representatives has approved legislation exempting low-income utility customers from paying the $60 reconnection fee.
The House, by a vote of 14-1, passed a bill designed to benefit residential customers of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. who are receiving or who qualify for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
Rep. Tina Sablan was the only member to oppose the bill. She said she voted against the bill “primarily because we did not know exactly what the cost impact would be for the proposed program, and it seemed irresponsible to me to create a subsidy program without having at least a vague idea about its cost or how we would pay for it.”
Reps. David Apatang, Francisco Dela Cruz, Victor Hocog, Ray Palacios, and Ray Yumul were absent.
Currently, customers who have had their utility service cut off must pay $60 to get the service restored. If enacted, House Bill 16-56 will benefit about 675 LIHEAP recipients.
Based on data provided by CUC executive director Antonio Muna to the House Ways and Means Committee, CUC has disconnected an average of 13 LIHEAP customers from June 2007 through May 2008.
In the past four months, a total of 35 LIHEAP customers were disconnected, but only one of them has been reconnected.
Muna said that none of the customers are delinquent because the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, which administers the program, is delayed in remitting payment to CUC. He said a customer is delinquent when either the customer has not paid his or her share of the bill after the LIHEAP credit, or DCCA has transmitted the list of customers with the credit amounts late—i.e. after CUC runs its bills—or has missed to include a customer on its list.
