Up in Wisconsin, a similar drum of concern was beating in the anxious hearts of vulnerable residents as the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin announced a similar end approaching to moratoriums, as PSC Chairwoman Rebecca Cameron Valcq similarly cautioned that “I encourage all who are behind in their utility bills to contact their utility and work out a payment plan, and for those who are struggling to pay, to seek out available public assistance funds,” doing her best to defend her agency’s decision with the note that “our challenge during this pandemic has been to balance public health with the ability of utilities to continue to provide safe and reliable service. We are successfully doing that.”

Facing a Natural Gas surge due to freezing weather in February, this past month, local CBS Affiliate Channel 4 reported that in swift reaction, “proposals getting bipartisan support in the Minnesota Legislature would help offset increased natural gas bills for low-income Minnesotans triggered by the February polar vortex, which caused supply disruptions and a surge in demand that led to skyrocketing prices. The severe weather event cost utility companies hundreds of millions of dollars. For CenterPoint Energy alone, that cost was $500 million over a 10-day period in mid-February, one-and-a-half times greater than the company’s entire gas costs for the previous fiscal year. The spike translates to an estimated extra $200 to $400 on Minnesotans’ gas bills this year.”

As Minnesota Public Utility Commissioner Katie Sieben predicted that “millions of Minnesotans will see dramatic financial impacts,” with Bill Grant, executive director of Minnesota Community Action Partnership, adding that “many families have had to make the difficult choice to defer utility bill payments during this time, the gas price spike surcharge will only add to this misery.” The Minnesota Department of Commerce has already doubled its energy assistance amount from $600 to $1200, while New Ulm Public Utilities director Kris Manderfeld, speaking on the local impact noted a jump in her city of 13,500 of a gas bill rocketing from $727,000 in January to $7.5 Million in February, and expecting an increase in March, pointed out the pressure local communities were facing as “that’s a huge increase in the cost of natural gas for one month. Just the three small towns that New Ulm Public Utilities works with saw an increase in their gas supply cost of over $900,000.”

Channel 4 reported among other remedies in the works that “The legislature is evaluating solutions of its own. Bills in the House and Senate — sponsored by a Democrat and Republican, respectively — that advanced this week would help low-income Minnesotans shoulder the additional financial burden at a time when they are already struggling due to the pandemic. The legislative proposals would allocate $15 million for zero-interest five-year loans to help municipal utilities defray costs that could hit consumers as early as this month. For state-regulated utilities like CenterPoint and Xcel Energy, those surcharges will appear later.”

Another aggressive measure sponsored jointly by Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, and Sen. David Senjem, R-Rochester, intended to distribute $100 million to customers who qualified for emergency assistance and another $15 million for municipal utilities in need of help, with Rep. Long still careful to emphasize that “this just dwarfs the scale of anything that we have in place to protect those (low-income) folks, so that’s a really urgent need.” Senator Senjem added that “we’ve got some people here that have enough problems with meeting the daily expenses anyway and a substantive hit on their gas bill like this is probably something they’re not going to be able to handle.”

Sources:

State moratorium on utility disconnections to end April 15, 2021 (wsaw.com)

Lawmakers Advance Bills To Help Offset Natural Gas Costs Due To February Surge – WCCO | CBS Minnesota (cbslocal.com)

Minnesota lawmakers look to help customers deal with natural gas price spike | MinnPost