The Maryland Public Service Commission and possibly a task force will look at how low-income families participating in energy assistance programs can continue to get much of their energy bill paid even if they switch energy suppliers.
“That (issue) I’m sure will be discussed by the Public Service Commission,” said Mary Lou Kueffer, director the Maryland Office of Home Energy Programs. “There is already talk of working groups.”
At stake is how federal energy assistance funds administered by the state are applied to a customer?s bill. The topic came to light after the Maryland General Assembly approved legislation allowing Baltimore Gas and Electric to impose a 15 percent rate increase beginning July 1.
If the low-income customer uses BGE as both supplier and generator of their electricity, then any money the family gets through state energy assistance programs can be applied to both the distribution, which is the delivery of electricity to the family home, and the generation of the electricity ? which is actually providing the electricity.
But if the low-income family switches to another energy supplier, that portion of the bill that applies to the generation of electricity would not get the assistance funds.
This occurs because a complicated 1999 energy deregulation bill gives BGE the ability to cut off a customer?s electricity for nonpayment, Kueffer said. BGE is considered”the supplier of last resort,” which means it has to take customers back when they pay their delinquent bill, Kueffer said.
As such, BGE maintains the risk and added expenses of managing the delinquent account. Even when customers switch suppliers, they continue to get a BGE bill that shows the new supplier as a line item, Kueffer said.
The Maryland Office of the People?s Counsel, an independent state agency that represents residential utility customers, said it has been trying to address this sort of assistance problem for years.
Theresa Czarski, deputy people?s counsel, said she hopes a new public service commission will make changes to the law so that assistance can apply to both the distribution and generation costs. In the interim, the people?s counsel suggests care.
“There is always hope. Other states have managed to work this out,” Czarski said.
Kueffer said the state has about $67 million for energy assistance this year. That?s about $27 million more than last year because Congress provided more money to states following the rise in gasoline and fuel costs last winter.
