Home energy bills are out of reach for more than two hundred thousand households in New Mexico. While most customers want to remain current on their utility bills, some have difficult circumstances that lead to payment troubles. This handbook provides information and tools to help low-income customers resolve payment and service problems and to protect their rights to obtain and maintain essential residential gas and electric service.
Overview
The rise in energy prices in recent years has outstripped the growth in income, which has caused utility bills to take up a bigger portion of household income. For some the bills are so high that they are impossible to pay. To avoid disconnection of their utility service people may juggle payment of other bills, forego food and medicine, postpone medical treatment, reduce heat to an unsafe level and/or take out a Payday loan. These difficult and burdensome choices mark a failure by our community to adequately care for one another.
The cost of home energy is projected to move further out of reach for New Mexicans as international demand grows, supplies decline, and as we begin to address the impact of human caused global warming. The utility industry and policymakers have been slow to respond to the increased energy burden faced by low income households. While a majority of states have adopted comprehensive and effective responses to the problem of unaffordable home energy with policies such as discount rates and arrearage forgiveness. In 2005 the New Mexico legislature adopted a winter shutoff moratorium, a vital consumer protection, and in 2006 utility companies in New Mexico proposed to offer energy efficiency programs to low-income households. These are steps in the right direction. However, the primary response in New Mexico to unaffordable home energy bills has been to seek additional funding for the low-income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP). While this program provides essential assistance it is drastically underfunded and it does not change the fundamental problem of unaffordable rates.
There is nothing for New Mexico to gain by postponing a more innovative and comprehensive response to assure greater affordability for home energy. It is time to move forward. It is time to provide a more comprehensive response to individuals and families who struggle to pay their utility bills.
It is hoped that readers of this handbook will be persistent in their effort to assert their rights and will work to help legislators, regulators and the media understand the realities of unaffordable home energy bills and the need for comprehensive policy change. Please join in the statewide effort to ensure energy affordability, protection and efficiency for low-income households.
Community Action New Mexico
Community Action New Mexico (CANM) is the statewide association of eight Community Action Agencies, which provide services and advocacy in every county in the state. Our vision is to strengthen the economy and build tomorrow’s workforce by developing the assets of New Mexico’s children, families and communities. It is the mission of Community Action New Mexico to develop and lead a policy agenda and implement high-impact strategies that will engage communities toward the elimination of poverty in New Mexico. Community Action New Mexico’s core values are neighborliness, fairness, responsibility, opportunity, and prosperity.
CANM's Energy Project
The Energy Project was initiated in 2005 to address the persistent, structural problems of unaffordable home energy in New Mexico. This is the first initiative of its kind in New Mexico and is part of a national movement for energy affordability for everyone not just the relatively well-to-do. The mission of the Energy Project is to ensure that home energy is affordable, that people who have trouble paying their bills are protected from unfair and discriminatory business practices, and that all utility customers have fair and equal access to energy efficiency and conservation programs.
The Energy Project believes that:
- Electric and gas service are essential for human health and safety and must be accessible and affordable for all New Mexicans.
- Utility companies have an obligation to serve all customers in the service territory at a reasonable rate.
- It is the role of government to ensure that residential utility service is safe, clean, reliable and affordable.
- Housing affordability cannot be assured without home energy affordability.
- Utility companies should utilize all energy efficiency measures that are cost effective, which includes programs designed to reach low income customers.
The Energy Project works for the adoption of high impact policies and legislation that will improve home energy affordability and protect consumer rights. The project works in partnership with advocates, service providers, environmental groups, and community members to raise visibility of this issue and create movement for change.
Utility regulation
Regulated electric and gas companies are different from almost all other businesses in that the government gave them a monopoly franchise to provide utility service in a specific geographic area. This means that utility companies operate without competition. In exchange utility companies have the obligation to serve customers at a reasonable rate as it is recognized that electric and gas service are essential to human health and safety.
In New Mexico, the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) regulates the delivery of gas and electric service in the state, which is provided by investor owned utilities (IOUs) and rural cooperatives (coops) in exclusive service territories. The PRC sets rates for the investor owned utilities (such as PNM, El Paso Electric, Xcel Energy) to protect customers from exploitative pricing and sets rules for customer service to prevent discriminatory delivery of services.
Regulation extends to the:
- Provision and denial of service,
- Provision of consumer information,
- Security deposits, advance payment for service and late payment fees,
- Termination and restoration of service and establishment of payment plans, and
- Resolution of disputes between customers and utility companies.
It is important that utility customers and advocates understand consumer rights and responsibilities when they negotiate with utility companies. The PRC not only interprets the regulations that govern utility companies it also has a responsibility to represent and protect the public interest. When customers feel that they have been treated unfairly they can turn to the PRC for help to resolve the problem with the utility company.
Customer rights
Before customers can assert their rights they must know what rights they have. This handbook draws upon New Mexico law and provides readers with information and resources to obtain service, maintain service, and to resolve complaints or disputes.
New Mexico law articulates the rights and responsibilities of utility companies in its customer relations. In the most general sense, customers have the responsibility to pay for service that is used and they have the right to be treated fairly, in a non-discriminatory and non-exploitative manner. More specifically, there are rules that govern the customer service practices of rural electric cooperatives and investor owned utilities in New Mexico.
The more informed customers and consumer advocates are about the customer service rules that utility companies must follow, the better they will be able to negotiate with a utility company. The rules can be found on the New Mexico Commission of Public Records website at:
www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/NMAC/parts/title17/17.005.0410.htm
Use the 'customer rights' menu above, or the links below to begin learning about the rights of New Mexico utility customers.
