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| Northwest Federation of Community Organizations |
| TAKING ACTION, MAKING CHANGE |
| OUR AFFILIATES: Idaho Community Action Network | Montana People´s Action | Oregon Action | Washington Citizen Action |
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ICAN Fights to Strengthen Statewide Consumer Protections The Idaho Public Utilities Commission regulates investor-owned private utilities. The PUC writes the rules about how these utilities treat customers. The customer relations rules include rules about deposits, when utilities can shut off people’s power, what kind of notice they have to provide before doing so, and basic protections like the winter moratorium and medical certificate that protect the most vulnerable customers from having their power shut off. These rules are important, and they could be much stronger. First, ICAN members read through the rules and decided how the rules should be changed. ICAN leaders met with PUC staff members to go over the changes they were proposing. Here’s a list of the changes ICAN proposed: >> Information about our rule change proposals (PDF) Next, ICAN proposed a bill that would make some of the rule changes law. (The Legislature has delegated authority for rule-making on the issue to the PUC, but it still has the power to tell the PUC what the rules should be through legislation.) Here’s a copy of the proposed bill and some information about it that ICAN used during the legislative session: >> Our customer relations bill (PDF) >> Talking points about the bill (PDF) Because the Legislature didn’t act on the bill, we returned to the PUC rulemaking process. Recently, ICAN leaders met with PUC staff and representatives of the utility companies to discuss possible rule amendments. Here’s a fact sheet the leaders used to prepare for that meeting: >> Talking points fact Sheet about rule changes (PDF) Our next step will be to petition the PUC to amend the rules. |
Northwest Federation of Community Organizations
1265 S Main, Ste 305 // Seattle, WA 98144
tel: 206.568.5400 // fax: 206.568.5444 // nwfco@nwfco.org