Relates to requiring the establishment of utility customer financial assistance programs and arrears reporting; requires utilities to report to the public service commission on customers who are in arrears due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to establish financial assistance programs of 24 or 36 months for customers to pay back their arrears.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
1316
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
January 11, 2023
___________
Introduced by Sens. PARKER, ADDABBO, HINCHEY, JACKSON, KRUEGER, MANNION
-- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to
the Committee on Energy and Telecommunications
AN ACT to amend the public service law, in relation to requiring the
establishment of utility customer financial assistance programs and
arrears reporting
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The public service law is amended by adding a new section
2 28 to read as follows:
3 § 28. Customer arrears program reporting. 1. For the purposes of this
4 section, the following terms shall have the following meanings:
5 (a) "assistance program" shall mean any program offered to eligible
6 low-income customers to assist with the costs of electricity, gas, and
7 water, including but not limited to the low-income home energy assist-
8 ance program, any low-income affordability plans as provided by public
9 service commission case number 14-M-0565, and/or any other financial
10 assistance program provided through or by New York state or individual
11 utilities, counties or municipalities;
12 (b) "COVID-19 state of emergency" shall mean the state disaster emer-
13 gency declared pursuant to executive order number two hundred two of two
14 thousand twenty;
15 (c) "municipality" shall have the same meaning as subdivision
16 sixteen of section two of this article and shall include potable
17 water districts and potable water systems owned and/or operated by a
18 city, town, village, authority or other governmental subdivision; and
19 (d) "utility" shall mean a municipality, utility corporation as
20 defined in subdivisions twenty-three and twenty-four, water-works corpo-
21 ration as defined in subdivision twenty-seven, an electric corporation
22 as defined in subdivision thirteen, a gas corporation as defined in
23 subdivision eleven, a combination gas and electric corporation as
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD01883-01-3
S. 1316 2
1 defined in subdivision fourteen, a steam corporation as defined in
2 subdivision twenty-two of section two of this article and any other
3 community water system as defined in 10 NYCRR 5-1.1.
4 2. (a) Each utility shall, within ninety days of the effective date of
5 this section, submit to the commission, in a form and manner determined
6 by the commission, a report on the number of its customers in arrears,
7 the number in arrears at ninety days or greater and the total dollar
8 amount of customer arrears.
9 (b) Within one hundred eighty days of the effective date of this
10 section, the commission shall require that utilities and/or munici-
11 palities establish financial assistance programs, related to the payback
12 of customer arrears established due to the COVID-19 state of emergency
13 which shall be either twenty-four month or thirty-six month payment
14 plans.
15 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
