Recording in progress.

Today is Thursday, March twenty sixth, twenty twenty-six, and we're meeting in room four twelve of the John A.

Wilson building as well as over the Zoom virtual platform.

The time is now ten oh nine AM, and I'm calling to order this public hearing of the committee.

During today's public hearing, we're going to hear from public and government witnesses on six bills.

Bill 26 105, the Improving Tenant Access to Water Bills Amendment Act of 2025.

Bill 26 124, the Utility Disconnection Protection Act of 2025.

Bill 26 243, the Automatic Enrollment for Utility Affordability Programs Act of 2025, Bill 26 443, the DC Water Billing and Disconnection Modernization Amendment Act of 2025, Bill 26-595, the Transparent Rates and Utility Expenses Amendment Act of 2026, and Bill 26-602, the Guiding Renewable Interconnection and Distribution Amendment Act of 2026, otherwise known as the Grid Act of 2026.

Are you all picking up on a theme today?

Utility costs have been rising, and the average overdue balance for all utility bills was nearly $800 million as of late 2025.

Translated.

According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, one in six households nationwide were behind on their energy bills in late 2025 due to record high summer cooling costs and rising winter heating costs.

Calls about utility shutoff notices have surged, indicating many families are juggling which of their essential bills they have to pay.

PEPCO and Washington Gas have implemented or requested rate increases raising from five to eighteen percent over the last two years, with the Public Service Commission approving several rate hikes on residents and businesses.

And as we've recently witnessed, the PSC had one of their rate increases vacated by a Court of Appeals decision, which implicates poor process and the decision to move ahead without proper evidentiary hearings.

While the cost of generating power outside DC has skyrocketed, the cost of distributing power within the district has risen in kind.

And we continue to rely on imported electricity and natural gas, leaving DC at risk of electricity cost swings and ongoing investments of more than $50 million per year for the foreseeable future in gas infrastructure replacement rather than repair.

Planning a better future at a reasonable cost to ratepayers will be essential to avoiding stranded costs and paving the way for a more affordable and energy independent DC.

Importantly, while working families' inability to afford higher costs or substantial factor driving higher energy burdens, energy inefficient housing also plays a larger role.

We have to improve energy efficiency in our multifamily properties so that our neighbors are not paying more than they should or are actually using.

Inefficient or inaccessible policies and programs for bill assistance, energy efficiency and weatherization for low-income households are one way.

Many income eligible families are often unaware of utility assistance programs and unfamiliar with the application process.

Only about 20%, only 20% of eligible DC residents are enrolled in customer assistance or utility discount programs, such as our low-income home energy assistance program, otherwise known as LIHEAT.

Why?

Because these are systems that are set up to make lower income working families prove their poverty over and over again.

It's demoralizing to our residents, and it's unnecessary.

And as a result, a lot of households are not getting the help that they need.

Additionally, so some low-income household faces they face barriers to program participation, such as lacking internet or phone access to complete that application reform, or not receiving a utility bill directly because they live in a master metered building or are renters in other properties.

On the whole, we have to improve access to our utility assistance and affordability programs, ensure that billing practices and processes are clear, clarifying protections for tenants and fair billing practices for housing providers, and we have to strengthen and create new opportunities to expand our energy options.

Today's hearing is aimed squarely at changing the status quo and helping our residents and businesses across DC.

So here's a quick review of the bills that are before us today that I'm going to turn to my colleagues for opening statements.

We have Bill 26-105, which is the Improving Tenant Access to Water Bills Amendment Act of 2025.

It was introduced on January 31st, 2025 by Councilmembers Parker and Fruman, and referred to the committee on February 4th.

The bill would allow tenants of residential properties to receive a copy of their DC water bill for their home, even if the property owner is the primary account holder and the one who is directly billed.

Bill 26-105 also clarifies that payments made by a tenant toward their DC water bill after receipt of such a bill should be deducted from the rent owed to the owner.

The bill also makes authorized tenants eligible for payment plans or customer assistance programs and empowers the Office of People's Council to assist tenants.

Bill 26-124, the Utility Disconnection Protection Act of 2025, was introduced by Council Mrs.

Nadeau and Bonds on February 14, 2025, and sequentially referred to this committee on February 18, 2025.

On March 3rd, 2026, following the dissolution of the Committee on Business Economic Development, the measure was referred directly to this committee.

The bill creates several protections for certain protected households defined to include seniors, children, individuals, disabilities, anyone who's pregnant or receiving pregnant recently pregnant, and low-income families.

Specifically, the bill prohibits electric and gas utilities from disconnecting services for unpaid bills during protected months, the cold seasons between November 1st and February 29th, and the hot season between May 15th and September 15th.

The Department of Energy and Environment would be responsible for determining enrollment in the shutoff protection program.

The bill also requires that electric and gas utilities offer payment plans and limit the monthly installments that must be paid through, as well as the penalties and fees that can be applied to payment plans.

Finally, the bill requires that electric and gas utilities report out information on rear on a rearages and disconnections to the Public Service Commission.

Bill 26 243, the automatic enrollment for utility affordability programs act of 2025 was introduced by myself along with Councilmembers Nadeau, Robert White, Louis George, McDuffie, and Parker on May 6th, 2025, and subsequently referred to this committee with comments from the Committee on Business and Economic Development, Committee on Human Services, and Committee on Health on May 13th.

Bill 26 243, if passed, would require that the Department of Energy and Environment, in coordination with the Department of Human Services and Department of Healthcare Finance automatically enroll low-income residents into income qualified utility affordability programs.

Residents who receive funds already through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, temporary assistance for needy families program, or TANF, Medicaid or other applicable human and social service programs would become eligible for automatic enrollment.

Bill 26 443, the DC Water Billing and Disconnection Modernization Amendment Act of 2025 was introduced by myself and Councilmembers Fruman, Pinto, Nadeau, Robert White, Louis George, and Trayon White on October 21st, 2025, and then referred to this committee on October 23rd.

The DC Water Billing and Disconnection Modernization Amendment Act of 2025 would overhaul DC Water's billing and disconnection processes.

The bill establishes a clear timeline for when DC Water issues a bill, when payment is due, and when an account is deemed delinquent and when service can be disconnected following a delinquency with longer waiting periods for more vulnerable residents.

Additionally, Bill 26 443 expands options for tenants of a rental property or owner occupy owner occupants of a multi-unit property to receive water and sewer service instead of through their landlord or a unit owner's association.

The bill requires DC Water to establish an amnesty program to help customers address outstanding balances and incentive programs through which customers can receive a discount on their bill.

The bill also makes updates to the receivership process and places limits on when DC Water can initiate liens against delinquent properties.

And finally, the bill requires the DC Water report out information to district agencies and to the Council regarding delinquencies and disconnections.

Bill 26 595, the transparent transparent rates and utility expenses, or true Amendment Act of 2026, was introduced by Councilor Robert White, along with Councilmember Fruman, Trayon White, Bonds, Nadeau, and Parker on February 13th, 2026, and referred to this committee on March 3rd, 2026.

The bill requires that housing providers provide prospective tenants with a list of all applicable charges for renting the rental unit before collecting an application fee, as well as a description of the method that the housing provider will use to allocate charges for the utility, which is commonly referred to as ratio utility billing systems.

The bill also periodically grants tenants access to utility bills issued to the housing provider and the right to inspect water service submetering equipment, noncompliant housing providers are prohibited from increasing rent, and the tenant is not required to pay for associated charges or fees.

And finally, Bill 26-602, the guiding renewable interconnection and distribution grid amendment act of 2026 was introduced by myself along with Councilmembers Fruman, Louis George, Nadeau, Parker, Pinto, and Robert White on February 24, 2026, and referred to this committee on March 3rd, 2026.

The stated purpose of the bill is to, if passed, clarify the Public Service Commission regulations to strengthen enforcement of existing standards to reduce timelines and costs for solar customers.

The bill would also require a regularly updated guide to the costs and processes to be available on PEPCO's website and require the Commission to update solar processes in line with the nationwide solar permitting policies on a regular cycle.

The bill would also establish an ombuds office within the Public Service Commission in coordination with the Office of the People's Council and Department of Energy and Environment to guide customers through the interconnection process and troubleshoot sticking points causing delays and inflated costs.

Finally, the bill would allow residents to buy and plug in their own balcony solar systems directly into their home electrical.

Homeowners or renters would be allowed to install plug-in panel systems without going through the same approval process as rooftop solar.

So with this, before I get to the logistics, let me turn to my colleagues for any opening statements.

Actually, I don't know who got here first.

All right, I'm gonna turn to Councilman Nadeau to start.

Then Council Robert White's joining us.

I'll turn to you, Councilor Robert White.

And if I have any colleagues joining us on Zoom, I'll make sure we include them as well.

Councilman Nadeau.

Thank you so much.

Um Chairman Allen, I want to start by thanking all the public witnesses for your time today and for bringing your energy and passion to this crit these critical issues and thank the committee for holding the hearing.

Last year I introduced the utility disconnection protection act of 2025 to ensure that district residents do not lose access to safe and affordable life-saving electricity and heat.

This is something that comes up every day in the Office of Award Council member, and it's an example of taking what we learn in community and putting it into action through legislation.

This bill safeguards residents by limiting an electric company or a gas utility from disconnecting service for protected households during summer and winter months.

Councilmember Allen did a great job explaining many aspects of the bill, and I don't want to repeat that.

But I will note that 48 other states have regulations in place that restrict the ability of landlords and utility companies to shut off utilities.

But in the District of Columbia, it's only against the law to shut off electricity and national natural gas when temperature is forecast to be 95 degrees Fahrenheit or above, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below.

The temperature-based policy is inadequate for many populations in the district, and it's needlessly complex.

The district's policy lags behind other states with clear and predictable date-based protections.

Shutting off a home's energy supply can have grave consequences on its residents' health and financial well-being.

Energy insecurity can often lead to physical and mental health challenges, including difficulty sleeping, poor respiratory health, and food insecurity, and at times can be fatal.

Those who are behind on their utility bills also face economic repercussions such as eviction or foreclosure or even separation from their children.

This can negatively impact their credit scores and bar them from establishing utility accounts in the future.

Our current bare minimum protection is inadequate for many populations.

And we have the opportunity to go further to ensure children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities are protected from the stifling heat of summer and the biting cold of winter.

In 2022, district households had their gas and electricity cut off nearly 8,800 times for non-payment, a phenomenon disproportionately impacting low-income black and brown communities.

It's crucial that the district adopt a clear and sensible guidelines for utility companies and district residents to follow.

And the changes made by this legislation would promote increased transparency for residents, accountability for companies, and protect our vulnerable communities from life-threatening temperatures.

Before I conclude, I want to address the elephant in the room, or more accurately, the elephant not in the room.

The committee asked PEPCO to come here today to answer questions about my proposed legislation and some of the other bills that are before us today.

And PEPCO declined.

Now PEPCO is a private company, but a publicly regulated utility.

They don't have to appear before the committee without a subpoena, but their participation in this hearing would have better informed our legislative process.

And I don't appreciate their refusal to appear here before the council, which represents the people of the district who have a direct interest in how PEPCO operates, charges its customers, and makes disconnection decisions.

At a time when PEPCO has significantly jacked up its electricity rates to benefits investors and at the expense of ratepayers, it's outrageous that the company thinks it's okay to not bother to show up and answer to the residents of the district.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you very much, Councilor Nadeau.

Next let me turn to Councillor Robert White.

Thank you, Chairperson Allen.

The SLATA bills on today's agenda reflect what we hear from constituents every single day now.

Utilities are not working for anyone anymore.

The cost is just too high.

People who are already stretched thin trying to make rent are now being pushed over the edge by utility bills.

For some, it's unexpected or exorbitant charges they didn't know about, and for others, it's barriers to assistance programs that could help them catch up.

But for everyone, it's a sense that costs keep rising while help is nowhere to be found.

The reality that most of us know is that even a hundred dollar swing in a utility bill can mean the difference between being able to pay a bill and not.

I get texts from family and friends all the time asking, can I lend them $100, $200 until payday because of utility bills?

One of the most common sense solutions is to make sure that tenants know exactly what they're being asked to pay for before they're locked into a lease.

Because again, for folks uh stretching every single dollar, these numbers matter.

That's why I introduced the True Act, which requires full transparency and disclosure of every charge a tenant will be responsible for and how it's calculated and give tenants the right to catch up on utility-related debt until the the point of eviction, matching existing protections for nonpayment of rent.

I want to thank the Office of the Tenant Advocate and the Office of the Attorney General for working closely with my team on this legislation, and I appreciate you including it alongside these other utility bills today.

We've all worked with hundreds of residents that faced water disconnection last year because their landlord failed to pay the bill, not them.

We've heard from residents who believe that they were making a responsible housing choice only to find themselves facing eviction over charges they never saw coming.

And in the last few weeks, almost everyone I've talked to has opened a utility bill that made their stomach drop.

My own electricity bill was over 1,100 in January.

And folks who know me know I keep my house at 68 degrees.

People are doing everything they can to stay afloat, and these kinds of shocks keep dragging them back down.

But we have to do something.

We have to take action.

A recently DC court said that the most recent set of rate hikes from PEPCO were not permissible.

I believe that PEPCO owes that money back to the rate players, to the individuals and to the businesses.

And so I'm working on emergency legislation to get that money back from PEPCO and to the people who should not have had to pay it in the first place.

So at this point, I believe that inaction is irresponsible, that our residents deserve better.

So I want to thank everyone today for being here.

Wanna thank you, Chairperson Allen, uh, for holding this hearing, and I'm committed uh to working with you all to move real solutions and I let me also apologize.

I'll be in and out uh because of other uh meetings and obligations.

Thank you.

Absolutely, thank you very much.

Appreciate you both being here.

Uh so with that, I'm gonna have a couple of comments on today's format, and then we'll get going.

For our ANC commissioners or public witnesses that are testifying on behalf of an organization, you'll each have five minutes to testify.

Public witness testifying on their own behalf will have three minutes.

If there are multiple witnesses testifying on behalf of the same organization, only one witness will have the f the first full five minutes testify, and any other witnesses will each have three minutes.

We're gonna be using a timer to keep us all in schedule for witnesses that are testifying in person.

Please take a seat at the table when your name is called.

For any of our witnesses are testifying virtually, you're gonna receive a prompt via Zoom to accept a promotion to be a panelist.

After finishing your testimony, please remain seated or in the Zoom in case uh we have questions for you.

And for anyone who is interested in submitting testimony for the record, the committee will accept written testimony through the council's hearing management system at Lims.dccouncil.gov backslash hearings, and the record on these uh on this hearing will close on April 9th, 2026.

So with that, let's turn to our first panel of public witnesses.

I have ANC Commissioner Tripti Patel for ANC2A03, who's here in person.

ANC Commissioner Abel Amine from 4D02, who I think is joining us via Zoom.

ANC Commissioner Salima Dofo from 8C07.

I'm not sure is in person or virtual.

We have Chris Weiss, executive director of the DC Environmental Network in person here.

Claire Mills, the DC campaign manager for the C CAN Action Fund, who's here in person.

Harrison Peros, who's a public witness, I believe, joining us virtually.

Alex R.

Pan African Community Action.

All right, if you can come on up, sir.

And then Bethany Costello, organizer with WePower DC, who I think is joining us virtually.

So as we get everybody settled here, Commissioner Patel, you're I got you called you up first and you're ready to go.

So let me turn to you.

Um and thank you very much.

Uh good morning, Chairperson Allen and members of the committee.

Um I am gonna ask the excuse immediately after my testimony.

I do have to go to work immediately.

Um thank you once again.

Um my name is Tripthy Patel, and I'm speaking on behalf of residents of advisory neighborhood commission two way about the escalating and unsustainable cost of utilities in the district.

Let me be clear, this crisis did not happen overnight.

It is the result of prolonged failures of oversight for nearly a year.

Residents have been warning that utility bills were becoming unmanageable and the government response has been far too slow.

Today, residents are receiving utility bills of a thousand dollars or more while rent continues to rise and grocery costs have doubled.

Families are being forced to choose between heat, food, medicine, and rent.

Seniors, low-income households, and working residents are being pushed to the brink.

I appreciate the council is now considering legislation to address disconnections, affordability, and transparency.

These bills are necessary, but legislation alone will not solve this problem.

Without aggressive sustained oversight, protections on paper do not translate into relief in real life.

So I want to be suspici to be specific about what residents need from this committee.

First, the public service commission must be held accountable.

Rate increases should be justified publicly in plain language with clear expectations of how they affect households by income level and by ward.

There should be regular oversight hearings focused on consumer protection and affordability, not just on approving rates.

Second, affordability programs must be automatic.

Residents should not have to navigate complicated applications or prove their suffering to get help.

The district has already, the district already has income and benefits data.

Use it.

Opt-in systems place the burden on the people least able to carry it.

Third, shut off protections must be enforced.

You should utilities that violate disconnection rules should face real penalties, including fines and customer credits.

Shutoff data should be reported in real time and made public as the council residents can see exactly where the harm is occurring.

Fourth, utility bills must be transparent.

Residents deserve to understand what they are being charged and why.

New fees and surcharges should not quietly appear without notice.

Explanation and council scrutiny.

And fourth, and finally, the district needs an independent audit of its utility oversight system.

How decisions are made, how complaints are handled, and whether regulators are truly protecting residents.

I want to ground this in real life.

A neighbor once told me that her two that her utilities were routinely shut off on Fridays, leaving her and her children without heat or air conditioning all weekend because she couldn't resolve the issue until Monday.

This is not in it, just an administrative failure.

This is a moral failure.

Nearly half of the district residents are now part of the working poor.

This is not a NICE issue.

It is a citywide emergency.

What you may hear as anger and frustration is actually a plea from residents who feel ignored and exhausted.

I urge the council to be proactive, not reactive, and to commit to sustained oversight that centers residents, not utilities, not developers, and not special interests.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Patellan.

I know you said you've got to leave, so we appreciate your testimony, and we'll definitely follow up with you with any additional questions.

Thank you.

Next let me turn to Commissioner MA, who's joining us virtually.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Um my name is Abella Mene, and I serve as advisory neighborhood commissioner for single member district for DO2.

I'm here today to testify on behalf of the entire ANC 4D commission, which has passed a resolution urging the council to address utility affordability.

The resolution has been uploaded into the council's limb system and can be found at ANC 26 0034.

Uh in this resolution, ANC4D notes that our residents are grappling with rising utility prices with energy costs nearly doubling in the past five years.

And PEPCO and Washington Bill uh washing the gas bills, even skyriding rocketing in recent months.

The resolution also notes that a district uh the Court of Appeals recently vacated the Public Service Commission's approval of PEPCO's multi-year rate plan uh because it failed to follow the process required by law, and the PSC failed to hold an advanced hearing.

Therefore, ANC4D's resolution urges the council and you, uh Chair Allen in particular, to do everything in your power to get the PSC to reverse the PEPCO rate hikes immediately to give residents the relief they so justly deserve.

In addition, uh, and more to the point of this hearing, ANC 4D's resolution urges the council to pass four bills in particular that are being considered today.

ANC 4D endorses the automatic enrollment for utility affordability act, the DC Water Bill and Disconnection Modernization Act, the Utility Disconnection Protection Act, and the Grid Act.

First, the automatic enrollment for Utility Affordability Act.

I am a recipient of LIHEAT UDP, SNAP, and Medicaid.

To qualify for SNAP, I am required to undergo uh a yearly certification that only requires me to report my income, but also to attend an interview either in person or over the phone.

The phone lines are busy uh usually, so I actually go in person and speak with a person who asks me questions, may require me to provide additional documentation.

I also undergo a mid-year certification that does not include an interview, but still requires me to verify my income.

So that means certification for SNAP is required every six months.

Thankfully, uh district direct is connected to the DHFS and my qualification for Medicaid is almost automatic.

However, when I go over to DOEE to qualify for LIHEAP and UDP, I'm required to undergo yet another income verification process that is slightly different, just as arduous and not any more rigorous.

This def defugative process is unnecessary.

In fact, there's no explanation for why LIHEAP could uh continues to require it.

Your committee is already familiar with several programs that are uh that other ages is share information.

DOT's eBAC program incentivizes uh people that qualify for SNAP.

Onto the DC Water Billing and Disconnection Modernization Act.

This is an important bill that will help address the issue of landlords who refuse to pay their water bills while collecting rent from their tenants to whom they have contractually obligated to provide water services as part of the lease.

However, this bill and the related transparent rates and utility expenses bill do not go far enough to address the growing issue of unregulated submetering.

Many landlords that used to provide water service as part of the rent have in the past two decades installed submeters with without any regulation or verification of the accuracy on billing of process.

The submeter in my apartment, which I will include a photograph of in my RID testimony, literally is literally held together with duct tape.

I'm not being facetious, there's actual duct tape involved.

The company I pay my bill to is located in Texas, and any uh attempts at filing consumer complaints about the business have illustrated to me that the submetering is a serious issue in the district that requires strong regulation and enforcement.

Several states and municipalities have passed laws regulating submetering of water service.

And I encourage this committee to review those and incorporate some of those bills and uh some of those into a bill, this bill or uh introduce another bill to do the same.

I also just wanted to take sense uh take the last few minutes that I have to talk about the two other bills that our ANC has endorsed, and that's the Utility Disconnection and Protection Act.

I worked with uh Councilmember Nadeau's office and also with Salad Bell, who I see is going to be testifying on many improvements to this bill to uh make it better, to make it accessible uh to also to immigrant communities in our in the district.

And I also welcome to see the great act that you've introduced, uh uh Chair uh Allen, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I am happy to answer any more questions, especially about seven meters.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

Uh it looks like Commissioner Adofo is not with us here today, so what we'll do is uh encourage him to get his testimony in, or if he joins us later today, I'll just add them on to a panel later on.

So, with that, let me turn to Chris Weiss, who is with the DC Environmental Network.

Good morning, Chair Personnel and Council members.

Wonderful to have more than one here and staff.

My name is Chris Weiss, and I direct the activities of the DC Environmental Network.

I also serve on the DC OPC's utility consumer advocacy network, but I'm not representing them at this hearing.

I could be wrong, but it feels like with both the DC Public Service Commission and the DC Office of People's Council, newly under the purview of the DC Council Committee on Transportation and the Environment, that some new fresh opportunity exists to make some progress on energy affordability and the associated expansion of renewables.

This list of bills today seems to support that observation.

A real opportunity exists here to bring more balance to the system and increase support for rate pairs with advocacy to ensure safe, reliable, and affordable utility services.

Thanks to Councilmember Allen, White, Nadeau, and Parker and other members who support created and are supporting these policies for taking advantage of this moment.

Some thoughts on some of the legislative proposals before the committee today.

Energy interconnection is the critical often-lengthly process of connecting new power generation like solar, wind, and storage to the electric grid.

Over the last decade here in DC and across the country, utilities have worked hard to promote fossil fuels and price alternative energy sources out of reach, compelling consumers to remain tethered to them.

Arguably, the district and this committee have tried to move in the right direction.

And with the guiding renewable interconnection and distribution amendment act of 2026, is taking a number of important steps to affirm, update, and enshrine Public Service Commission interconnection regulations, set up the Office of People's Council support for customers going through the interconnection process, and allowing residents to buy and plug in their own balconies solar system straight into their home electric system and avoid going through the same process for rooftop solar.

This is a good nuts and bolts adjustment that can help us expand renewables.

The Department of Energy and Environment administers several utility affordability programs that help district residents with their utility bills, including the low-income home energy assistance program, the utility discount programs, the weatherization assistance program, the Clean Rivers and Purpose Area Charge Residential Relief Program.

Rising utility costs for low-income residents make getting through getting through each day harder and harder for more and more DC residents as they struggle to pay their utilities, sometimes resulting in the disconnection of electricity and water.

The automatic enrollment for utility affordability programs act of 2025 strives to ensure that all households can more easily access available utility assistance by giving DOE the ability to automatically enroll qualifying households.

It should not be so hard to make sure children, older Americans, and others will have access to the fundamentals, including electricity and water.

Automatic enrollment makes sense, seems to make sense, and makes the lives of low-income households a little better.

As my friends at OPC share, the Utility Disconnection Protection Act of 2024 provides a crucial safety net for vulnerable district residents by preventing utility disconnections during extreme weather conditions.

This legislation helps to ensure access to essential services and reduces hardship for those in need.

Protected district households include those households with children under the age of 18, seniors age 65 and older, individuals with disabilities, and individuals who are pregnant or 12 weeks postpartum, and reciprocums of certain public assistance programs.

Current protections are outdated and lag behind other states.

This bill seems like a common sense approach to protecting successful district residents.

As a renter, I can appreciate the intent of the transparent rates and utility expenses amendment act of 2026 to bring more transparency and accountability to the housing provider tenant relationship, especially during these times when many of us are surprised by significant increases in our energy and water cost, but cannot easily get a detailed explanation for why this is happening.

Getting information that explains why and how changes are being made to utility costs could go a long way to reducing some of the frustration.

Transparency can help us figure out what to look for as tenants search for a better, more affordable housing situation.

Making sure utility charges are unenforceable if tenants can access recent utility bills, are not given the methodology on how charges are calculated and are not given access to contact into the third party billing companies seems practical.

So I'm running out of time.

I have I've commented on the other two bills.

These are just my preliminary thoughts.

I'm probably going to submit testimony with more detailed comments on your provisions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, I believe we have Claire Mills.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen, Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for calling a hearing on these bills to address the ongoing utility affordability crisis that DC residents are facing.

This month, 23.9% of residential ratepayers are in debt to PEPCO and 15.4% of ratepayers are in debt to Washington Gas.

That is nearly a hundred thousand DC households behind on their bills right now.

And with massive bills that have hit families in the last month, I fully expect those numbers to go up even higher.

So thousands of families are at risk of PEPCO or Washington gas shutting off their power and heat, harming their health, well-being, and potentially leading to eviction.

But this is a manufactured crisis, a combination of skyrocketing electricity costs across our entire region to repeated rate hikes approved by our public service commission majority, to blatant blocking of clean energy solutions like solar deployment by DC's monopoly utilities, and I commend the efforts in these bills we are discussing today for addressing key pieces of this crisis.

First, I'll turn to the Grid Act.

Thank you, Councilmember Allen, for introducing this legislation to address the mess that our public service commission has failed to clean up.

With our regional market becoming increasingly volatile, unlocking the potential of solar power has never been more important to lower bills and get DC on track to our climate commitments.

But for years, we've dealt with PEPCO's consistent obstruction of deployment of local solar through unpredictable and arbitrarily high project cost estimates and interconnection delays that make residents give up before the job is done.

Our interconnection rules are out of date and poorly enforced due to the PSEs in action.

For example, uh just recently when PEPCO delivered an example cost letter wholly out of date with a PSE order, the Commission simply asked PEPCO nicely to try again rather than demanding a response and issuing a fee for noncompliance with the original order.

So I fully understand the approach the Grid Act takes to finally answer interconnection questions long held up in PSE working groups, finalize the rules, and get the queue moving for residents.

But I am concerned that locking solar interconnection rules into law will leave DC in the same position we are today in a few years.

Modeling interconnection rules from IRAC, for example, are updated every two years, and if we lock the current regulations into law, we may find ourselves in the situation we are today in two years.

So I would generally recommend an approach of laying out clear objectives for the commission with a deadline for rulemaking and detailed outcomes that define success to require the PSC to actually do their regulatory work rather than fully subsuming that responsibility due to their inaction.

And so I would encourage a provision that requires the PSC to regularly update interconnection rules on a two-year schedule to put us in line with industry best practices and ensure we're not unintentionally recreating our current problem for our future selves.

That said, I hope the establishment of the independent Ombuds office in the Grid Act will help to ensure future implementation of rules and uh commend the inclusion of this practice that is common in other states.

And C CAN Action Fund is thrilled to see the inclusion of plug-in solar in the grid act.

I'll put it simply.

Luckily, as is so often the case, the Sun provides.

And plug-in solar is an easy stepping stone that unlocks hundreds of dollars in savings and opens the door to solar power for all by making solar more accessible to folks, particularly renters.

So I'm excited for the grid act to pass and make the DC a leader among the many states now moving in the same direction to expand access to plug-in solar.

Now we'll turn to the automatic enrollment for utility affordability programs act.

The skyrocketing utility bills of the last few months and really years make it more clear than ever that ensuring all residents who are eligible for utility assistance programs are able to access them.

And yes, that comes with an added cost, but frankly, that cost pales in comparison to the cost of fossil fuel spending, jacking up our gas bills as we speak, or the rate increases recently approved by the commission majority.

If we have 150 million for fossil fuel infrastructure, we certainly have an extra 13 million to help those most impacted cover their bills.

Automatic enrollment is a key step in the right direction that should absolutely be taken.

And it's only a start, we need to expand funding for these programs and ensure that DOE has the budget required to implement them.

Similarly, we strongly support passing the utility disconnection protection act.

Defining shut-off moratorium periods by month rather than temperatures is much more comprehensible for DC residents.

And the expansion of reporting requirements to include ward level data is particularly important, uh, including to guide targeting of uh programs that lower bills, like the Affordable Home Electrification Program and places where they're most needed.

And finally, for the True Act, we're strongly supportive of the goal to expand tenants' rights and increase transparency about the real cost of their unit.

This legislation is a good start in that direction.

But we'd be in favor of moving more towards per unit metering so that residents have more knowledge of what energy they're using and can better increase improve their energy efficiency.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to Harrison Pyroz, who I think is joining us virtually.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Um thank you for letting me uh testify.

I'm I'm ready to go whenever.

And we are ready for you whenever.

So take it away.

Sorry, Mona, I'm on a lag.

My apologies.

No problem for letting me testify this morning.

Um I want to start off by saying that I am award four renter and I'm also an organizer with VPower DC, in case you recognize my name and my face in your inboxes.

Um, I want to start off also first by saying that the vast majority of the contents of these bills are fantastic.

I am always in favor of bills that increase transparency and affordability for all DC residents and in increasing transparency and affordability, especially around utilities, we're increasing trust in our local elected officials.

So often people in DC and across the country, honestly, need to jump through hoops in order to get the benefits that are guaranteed us.

And these bills around transparency, around billing, about uh interconnection, shutoffs, and more really establish that our elected officials are looking out for us and showing that government can and should get things done in an efficient and cheap manner.

So I really want to touch on a few of these bills because uh I only have so much time.

I can put more in my written testimony.

Um these bills touch on, for example, the grid act.

We do need local solar generation uh here and also through battery energy storage systems or best.

Um, however, these bills I want to flag only ever work if we have a public service commission that is interested in regulating.

Um, right now, that is not the case.

Uh as Claire Mills touched on in her testimony, we have a very lax PSC that is more interested in giving slaps on the wrists uh to PEPCO in Washington Gas than um enforcement.

I'll use the example of I believe this was last week, formal case 1050.

And instead of disciplining PEPCO for not giving data on cost transparency with solar equipment and labor, that has been late for about uh off the top of my head, about five months now.

Uh instead, the PSC nicely asked PEPO PEPCO to resubmit this data.

So in short, and I'm happy to answer questions after this.

Uh these bills are fantastic, and they really do increase the trust here that DC government can look out for the finances and wellbeings of our citizens.

However, these bills can only really uh come to their true and full potential if we have regulators who are interested in regulating our monopoly utilities.

Thank you so much for allowing me to testify today.

Thank you very much.

Uh next, let me turn to Alex.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Yeah, good morning, Chairperson and members of the committee.

My name is Alex, and I'm speaking on behalf of Pan African Community Action, an organization organizing with residents across Southeast DC around housing stability, public health, and community power.

We want to begin by stating plainly the existence of the transparent the transparent rates and utility expensive amendment act of 2026 exposes a deeper failure in how housing and essential services are governed in Washington, D.C.

Across the district, tenants are already paying the cost of water through rent or building fees passed down by landlords.

Yet many residents cannot access the accounts tied to their own homes, cannot see arrears building up in those accounts, and cannot intervene before those problems escalate.

Families are already struggling with rising rents, rising utility costs, and growing displacement pressures that are pressure that are pushing longtime residents out of their neighborhoods.

So when we talk about access to water bills, we are not simply talking about transparency.

We're talking about a system where the people who depend on essential services have the least control over how those services operate.

Pan African Community Action recently released our community control platform for Washington, DC, which states clearly that energy, water, sanitation, broadband, and other infrastructure must be treated as public goods governed through binding community oversights, not systems managed without meaningful resident authority.

Our platform also calls for removing land and housing from speculative systems that drive displacement and instability from working class residents.

From that perspective, this bill should be understood for what it is a mod a modest transparency measure that attempts to manage the symptoms of a much deeper problem.

It does not address why tenants have so little power over essential systems in the first place, nor why basic necessities like housing and water are increasingly sources of crisis for residents across the city.

Residents across Southeast DC are organizing around these questions right now because people understand that the current could the current trajectory, rising costs, displacement, and limited accountability is not sustainable.

If the district is serious about addressing affordability and displacement, it will require more than just incremental reforms.

It will require confronting the fundamental question this bill raises.

Who actually should have the power to govern the essential systems that shape the conditions of people's lives in this city?

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and happy to answer any questions about anything I just laid out or the uh platform that we just released.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

And then last for this panel, let me turn to Bethany Costello online.

Good morning, whenever you're ready.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen and Council members.

Thank you for being here and listening to us speak today.

My name is Bethany.

I live in Ward One, and I'm one of the co-chairs of We Power DC, DC's campaign for a publicly owned, democratically controlled and decarbonized utility system that would provide lower rates community control and investments in clean reliable energy that would bring DC energy democracy and improve our city's independence.

And while I know our vision for public power would erase the need for nearly all of the bills we're here to talk about today, I also know we need to materially improve people's lives to deal with the affordability and climate crises we're fine facing in the meantime.

And WePower DC knows that while we would love for many of these bills to go even further in their proposed reforms, the Utility Disconnection Protection Act, the automatic enrollment for utility affordability programs act, the transparent rates and utility expenses amendment act, and the guiding renewable interconnection and distribution grid amendment act are all at least a good place to start.

We've been hearing a lot recently about how many DC residents PEPCO bills climbed 100, 200% over this past winter.

And I myself even sat in another hearing just a few weeks ago, sharing about the disappointing performance of our public service commission majority in preventing the 93% increase DC has seen in our electricity rates over the past five years.

What we've heard considerably less about, however, are the 16,981 disconnection notices issued to residential customers in January of this year, and the 20,320 issued in February.

While we while we were all struggling with weeks of snow creatures and one of the harshest winters DC has known in years, many of our neighbors were having to choose between groceries rent and keeping the heat on in 20 degree weather.

While it's great that these months would be covered under the protections of the Utility Disconnection Protection Act with its proposed protected months from May 15th through September 15th and November 1st through February 29th, we also know that regardless of the time of year, utility disconnections are cruel and inhumane.

Lacking access to power at home can result in a variety of health problems no matter the weather.

For example, due to the inability to refrigerate medication or use medical equipment, heat water for proper hygiene or adequately ventilate a home.

In addition, lacking good, lacking such a basic good and arguable human right creates an obviously stressful situation and can contribute to a negative feedback loop where these subsequent health issues and stressors make it harder to maintain a job and save enough money to make meaningful payments towards a bill or payment plan.

These challenges are also not limited to previously established vulnerable or income qualified households, and instead can easily befall any number of DC residents who face sudden financial hardship, as so many federal workers and immigrant families have faced in our city in the last year.

We Power DC believes no household should ever face a disconnection and would ask that this bill be even more ambitious in its protections by providing a year-round non-means tested ban on shutoffs, but we are still supportive of the small steps being taken in the bill as written.

One way to reduce the overall energy building burden felt in our city is to expand distributed generation.

And WePower DC is glad to support the grid act in making it easier for more people to benefit from technologies like rooftop solar, battery storage, and newly plug-in solar.

We have known that PEPCO's interconnection processes have been an expensive black box for years, and that the PSC has been far too lax with letting PEPCO drag out timelines and pass along exorbitant upgrade fees with a complete lack of accountability or transparency.

We are glad to see the Grid Act starting to tackle these issues, but caution that in this time of such rapid change in the US energy system may make more sense to legislate the PSC to develop regulations that achieve the specific outcomes we want to see that can be updated more easily as the more best practices are established across the country, such as the growing use of flexible interconnections.

Regardless, every additional step we can take to make DERs more accessible increases energy democracy in our city and reduces our dependence on fossil fuels.

And WePower DC is glad to support the Grid Act.

WePower also supports the Automatic Enrollment for Utility Affordability Programs Act and the Transparent Rates and Utility Expenses Amendment Act, as both offer common sense reforms to increase transparency, increase tenant rights, and reduce the administrative burdens on households seeking utility assistance.

In the case of all of these bills, however, it is frustrating to remember how incremental each of these reforms is when compared with the millions of dollars extracted annually from DC residents by the tireless profit-seeking behavior of both PEPCO and Washington Gas, a trait that is inherent and structural to their nature as investor-owned utilities.

While we are glad to see action being taken on utility issues by the DC council, we ask that you take measures that are actually matching the gravity of the situation and join us in dreaming of the energy system of a future, a publicly owned utility that puts DC residents first every time.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

And thank you to everybody on this panel for your testimony.

Commissioner Minay, you talked about, and you've been really a consistent voice on this, uh, which I appreciated around uh submetering and water utilities.

And you talked about, you know, uh held together by duct tape.

But you also mentioned that you believe that the legislation should go further on submetering.

Could you elaborate and let us know a little more what you were recommending?

Yeah, um, as I can currently understand it, uh, there is almost no regulations on submetering of you know multi-housing units.

Um, right now, uh, there is no way, for example, for me to challenge uh these these bills that I'm receiving from this company in Texas uh before the public service commission.

My relationship with this company with this submetering relationship is an entirely a landlord-tenant relationship.

And so that, you know, I've also, you know, tried to use, for example, the process available through mediation at the OES uh, I'm sorry, the OEG's office, and I know the OEG will be testifying later today.

And I think you'll find there many people are in the same situation as me where there are these submeters.

They're just basically things that uh that the landlord has installed there is no as far as like the DC w DC waters basically not aware of them and doesn't even have any oversight over them.

There's no monitoring by any DC water um you know inspectors or anything like that.

It's entirely under the control of the landlord.

And the landlord is through this other uh third party uh billing tenant uh individually using figures that are easily um disputable if only we could get the underlying DC water bill that the landlord is receiving and that part of the uh issue you are addressing with the these bills but what is not being addressed is what types of submeters are installed in in these units uh what are you know the certifications that they require what are the the transmissions like the duct tape that I meant mentioned is because this submeter is attached to this signal uh generator which apparently is being detected by another uh device somewhere in the apartment unit that transmits information to uh this company in Texas and none of that is regulated by Department of Buildings is none of it is regulated by DC Water and as far as I can tell none of it is regulated by the public service commission.

So this is what's been happening in in recent decades more and more apartment units that used to have water as part of their uh rent are installing these and now charging um the the tenants through these third parties and none of that as far as I can see is regulated.

Got it.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Mills I I appreciated your testimony and it's a tension we feel all the time around when do we put something into law compared to when do we look for something to be set forward in regulations.

And typically when we feel like those things and regulations are not moving fast enough or strong enough, we say okay then let's put in legislation.

But you rightly point out we could find ourselves a couple of years from now locked into a legisl uh piece of legislation that either needs to be amended because perhaps uh technology or regulations could improve it.

So it's it is a constant tension that we feel around this of when we have to step in and do that.

I'm at a place of frustration where I feel like I do need to step in and do that, which is where we're coming from.

But I I absolutely take your point around the balance that we would seek um and oftentimes it's at least it makes sense to set up something like that so that it can be reviewed or revisited um you know every two years or something like that so that you don't find yourself outdated very quickly.

But I just wanted to note that I I I hear your point and it's a tension we feel.

When we look at some of the other elements here are there any lessons learned from other jurisdictions that you would point to around um interconnection timelines or where you've seen a uh public service commission in another jurisdiction uh move in a different way in a better way you know I know when we look at other cities a lot of these you know permitting for example can be approved within 24 hours or within five days whereas our average was 77 days at one point last year.

Welcome any thoughts you have around just other best practices we've seen yeah I think um actually what we see in DC is that some of our you know some of what's on paper in DC is pretty good in comparison to other places but we don't see it being followed through on essentially and so that's what's driving up you know our timelines around interconnection um are some of the highest in the country.

So I think one a lot more granularity on some of those timelines to keep them in order is something that other states have that would help us.

I think I would consider New Mexico to be one of the states that has the best interconnection proceedings.

It's um very closely modeled on what IREC's recommendations are but has some more specifics to it that I think have worked really well in in New Mexico and I think um could be applied to DC.

I think generally what we see in some of you know the best practices in best states is um a lot more cost transparency up front so that um the utilities have to provide their right now the process of you sort of get a cost estimate per interconnection after the fact but you really have nothing to compare that against it's like you get a bill but you have no idea what that bill could be or should be so that's something the grid act is addressing that I think is a really key best practice in many other states around the country.

And I think going to to what you mentioned as well around sort of the regulation versus legislation side of this I think what we see in a lot of other states legislatures is sort of regularly maybe not every session but every couple of years um pushing the commissions in those various states to issue XYZ update that achieve ABC outcome.

Like there's a more regular practice of doing that in other states that we don't, we haven't had in the district, at least in recent years.

So I think that's how we've seen better interconnection get into place in other states, mostly because the standards do change really rapidly.

And so it's that regular pushing of the regulators to update them that I think is what has created like the great ones we see in New Mexico and some other states around the country.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Alex, I was gonna ask could you share a little more?

You talked about the platform that was recently released.

Um could you talk a little bit more about what your organization recently adopted and how you believe, as we consider kind of this package of bills that are in front of us, they could be improved to go beyond what you said.

Not you know, you were correct.

We're trying to manage symptoms of a much larger problem.

Um so welcome any additional feedback you have around how we don't just address the symptoms, but what are other recommendations that the organization laid out to address the problems?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

So uh community community control DC lays out 12 demands that aim at shifting um power into the hands of the most impacted communities in uh DC, which would be um Ward 7, Ward 8, Southeast DC.

You know, these communities are the most neglected, ominous surveilled, the most overpolic.

And what the platform lays out is how do we build institutions that prompt community governing over these resources?

And so we appreciate these uh sort of attempts at you know, reforming these current systematic issues.

Um, but Pan-African community action is attempting to fully realize uh institutions that prompt community uh participation in um in in resources.

And so as was laid out before, um, you know, water is a public good controlled by a private company.

And so we um we we want to realize a way that the community has direct control over that rather than these um corporations who end up exploiting um the the needs of these communities.

And so um specifically, um what I can uh direct uh pointly uh directly point to is demand number four, which is the people shall control public resources, which states uh make participant uh participatory budgeting and binding non-reversible uh mandate by uh binding participatory participatory budgeting administered administered through neighborhood assemblies over significant and clearly defined portions of DC's operating and capital budgeting of capital budgets affecting Southeast DC, ensuring that residents directly determine how public resources impacting their communities are allocated.

Community approval allocations shall carry the full force of law, and the mayor, CFO and all districts' agencies are prohibited from revising, delaying, or overturning adopted uh allocations.

Any interference may trigger automatic public discourse, correct uh corrective action and enforceable community remedies, including the suspension or we reallocation of funds.

Does that make sense?

All right, thank you.

I just want to make sure it gave you a chance to help outline that.

I know you'll have written testimony, but want to make sure you're able to do that.

I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Um Ms.

Costello was gonna ask you a little bit.

Um, I appreciate that you've kind of supported again the suite of the package of bills in front of us.

Um you mentioned that a more aggressive step should be uh taken on our DERs or distributed energy, and that would also require action from the PSC broadly.

What are some of the actions that you think the PSC is delayed in your opinion?

Um either on DERs or you know, we have a uh a PPA pilot uh that's supposed to be coordinated that seems to still be delayed.

Could you talk more about uh where you see some of the delays that that is frustrating our efforts?

Yeah, I actually um I would love to pass the mic to my uh co-organizer Harrison, who I think has more of the receipts on this particular question.

Um, but generally speaking, we know that uh PPAs are one of the things in particular that could be helping us reduce our dependence on the volatility of the PJ market and wholesale electricity prices, um, as well as moving us towards our actual climate goals.

Um, and we know that they have not been as ambitious as we would like to see as we have legislated by our climate goals um here in DC, and um could go really far in helping us move towards those goals and improve our energy in independence here in DC.

Um additionally, I think many of the things that you laid out in the Grid Act around interconnection are really important.

Um we would love to see more government support for um publicly owned renewables in addition, um, really helping our low-income residents and low-income neighbors also benefit from these uh technologies that can provide such meaningful benefits to households if they're able to access them.

And so we think that the plug-in solar component is really exciting and will definitely lower some barriers.

But programs like DC Solar for All and really making sure that those things get funded are really important.

And then additionally, just having general commissioners who are actively trying to limit PEPCO and the ability that they have to slow down these processes is really important.

And so I think you already know how we we feel about that, but would love to give Harrison a chance to contribute to this question.

Absolutely.

All right, Harrison.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's a number of different ways that we can achieve local clean generation here, one of which is through this grid act and cleaning up that interconnection process.

Um that's those solar interconnections stay in private hands with either the community or with the residents.

The other way that the PSC has really dropped the ball when it comes to lowering our energy costs and increasing our renewable energy here in DC is through those renewable PPAs, though those are power purchase agreements.

Um we were at a 5% of our SOS a few years ago, and it should have been bumped up to a significant portion.

So we uh as DC and PEPCO don't need to rely so much on that PJM interconnection market.

Um it was only just recently bumped up to 25% so we can procure green energy from localized uh wind farms and solar farms or battery energy storage systems.

Um I do want to flag that Chairman Thompson tried to dissent and slow walk that, but um was overruled.

Um, another portion that has been really frustrating when it comes to uh achieving DC's energy independence and lowering our overall SOS is the deployment of virtual power plants, of EV charging and battery energy storage systems here.

Those SOPs, I believe were finalized in 2021, and the majority of them still haven't been uh published as RFPs.

I think it was last week, correct me if I'm wrong, uh, that a partnership with Eco Suite was just released that helps with the deployment of DERs, but it's what 2026 now?

It's five years late.

Our supply chain is so much more complex.

So our costs have gone through the roof.

And the people who are left holding the bag with all of this delay are, of course, DC households and businesses that are paying premiums on these energy prices.

So those are some of the ways that the POC has dropped the ball and uh the ways that we can move forward as a city if we're interested in also uh procuring more energy and green energy outside of DC's borders.

DC can create like a um there's a few terms for it across the country, but it's like a renewable energy authority or corporation.

It essentially allows an authority of a state to uh finance clean energy projects and therefore have priority in the energy that they create that would be a lot lower than the volatile wholesale market.

Um it can be financed through municipal bonds, but it can also be financed through a one-time revenue stream because once it's creating that energy that is then sold to the market, it creates a revenue stream of its own.

So just kind of like a wonky or a long-term solution.

Sorry.

No, no, no, that's fine.

I appreciate it.

Um, and certainly ripe for follow-up after the hearing as well to keep talking, get more details on that.

I know because we have a large number of witnesses, um, I want to be able to move on to our next panel, but I want to thank everybody on this panel for your testimony on all of these bills that are in front of us and for the continued action.

So thank you.

I want to move to our next panel of public witnesses.

I'm gonna call out names again.

It's a mix of folks that are here in person as well as online.

But I have Megan Browder, the legal director, systemic advocacy and law reform program at Legal Aid DC.

Patrick Cothern, who's the policy attorney with Children's Law Center.

I have Dean Hunter, CEO of the small multifamily owners association.

Eric Jones, Vice President of Government Affairs with the DC for DC and Commercial at AOBA, the Apartment and Office Building Association, and Mr.

Jones is joining us virtually.

Maya Brennan, the chief housing officer with the coalition.

Who's also joining us virtually, and Mason Grove, who's a staff attorney with the tenant justice program rising for justice.

Who is also joining us virtually.

All right, so we've got three in person and three virtually.

Um Ms.

Browder, we'll start with you and good morning.

Good morning.

Uh good morning, Chairperson Allen and members of the committee.

My name is Megan Broder, and I am the legal director for systemic advocacy and law reform at Legal Aid DC.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My testimony today focuses on primarily on the tenant protections for water services.

Legal aid supports these bills.

Last year, when DC Water began prioritizing multifamily buildings with delinquent water bills for disconnection, hundreds of DC tenants faced losing water service through no fault of their own.

Legal aid worked with DCOEG, DC Water, Children's Law Center to prevent water disconnections for tenants.

Prioritizing multifamily buildings unfairly puts tenants at risk.

Even though it's the landlord's obligation, if they don't pay DC water, then the tenants, not the landlord are left without water to bathe, cook, drink, or use the restroom.

Legal aid has seen several landlords take advantage of D.C.

Water's policy to target multifamily properties with delinquent water bills.

Some landlords see it as a win-win situation when they want to clear buildings.

If the water gets shut off, many tenants will leave themselves or the Department of Buildings may condemn the building if the issue is not resolved quickly.

The landlords get to both uh avoid paying the delinquent water bill and also displace tenants without going through the eviction process.

Legal aid urges the council to address this practice by requiring that water service be established in the name of a natural person, not a corporation, and requiring DC water to file receiverships actions before disconnecting water at multifamily mastermeter buildings.

Legal aid represents tenants like Alexander Hoskins, who came home from working one night to find his building water shut off.

His lease expressly said he was not responsible for water, yet the landlord told the tenants to either move out or take over the bill themselves.

Mr.

Hoskins and his children lived without water for weeks until legal aid intervened.

This situation should never happen.

We also have represented tenants like Ms.

S, whose waters was shut off in April 2025.

Once legal aid got involved, it turned out that the owner had not made any water payments since October 2020, despite charging tenants, including Ms.

S for water.

Ms.

S, who had just moved in and late 2024 with her three kids, had paid her rent and additional money for the water bill, but the owner had not given that money to DC Water and her water was disconnected.

The improving tenant access to water bills amendment of 2025 will allow tenants to have access to water bills for their home and deduct water payments from their rent, and the DC Water Billing Disconnection Modernization Amendment Act of 2025 will allow tenants to receive water services in their own name if they choose to.

Legal aid does note that these bills both intend to amend DC Code 342303 in potentially contradictory ways.

We hope that the council will address these these tensions and allow tenants access to their water bills, but not force them to place water in their own name if they don't choose to.

Water is an essential service, and uh in multifamily residential buildings, water bill water bills are the owner's responsibility, not tenants.

Legal aid DC urges the council to not only pass these bills but to strengthen them so that access to water is protected, transparent, and fair.

Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Uh next, let me turn to Patrick Cothern.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen and members of the committee.

My name is Patrick Cother and I'm a Ward Aid resident and a policy attorney at Children's Law Center, for whom I'm testifying today.

Children's Law Center believes every child should grow up with a strong foundation of family, health, and education.

To meet that vision, Children's Law Center regularly represents children and families facing housing instability, unsafe living conditions, and utility shutoffs.

We have also initiated litigation on behalf of tenants affected by water shutoffs who are suffering the consequences of their landlord's arrears.

These cases underscore the urgency of the legislation before you.

We also support two related bills before the committee today, B-26, 0105, and 0124.

Taken together, these measures would ensure that tenants are no longer made the victims of utility disconnections and the landlords who jeopardize tenants' access to vital services are held accountable.

My testimony today focuses primarily on water and Bill 0443, which of the three I've mentioned is the one that we believe is most urgently needed.

Under current DC water policy, tenants were typically required to obtain property owner authorization before DC water would open a tenant account.

This is an often insurmountable obstacle when the owner is unresponsive or hostile to tenants.

The bill would also prohibit property owners from interfering with or penalizing tenants for doing so.

In short, 0443 provides tenants with an option to prevent water shutoffs and to preserve the habit to preserve their units.

Children's Law Center strongly supports this tenant empowerment provision.

If 0443 had been law, the shutoffs our clients have encountered could have been avoided by enabling tenants to assume service.

The bill offers a proactive solution that allows families who are willing and able to pay for their ongoing water usage to do so independent of their landlords' actions.

We also encourage the committee to consider supplementing this legislation with measures to better identify landlords who obscure ownership through shell entities.

The recently introduced Housing with Integrity Act would address this concern.

Children's Law Center supports that effort and urges continued exploration of mechanisms to ensure accountability for water nonpayment and other violations persist.

Our written testimony, which we will submit soon, will elaborate on our support for the other provisions of 0443, including the adjustments to the scope of appointed receivers.

In addition to that bill, we support 0105, which overlaps with 0443 by doing some of the same things.

And we support 0105 in the alternative.

Finally, we support 0124, which would prohibit DC water from shutting off water service during extreme temperatures.

This is also a provision of 0443, though it applies only to DC water.

And we appreciate that 0124 extends that requirement to all utility providers.

For these reasons, Children's Law Center urges the council to enact 0443 and to advance the complementary provisions contained in 0105 and 0124.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify, and we are able to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Next, Mr.

Hunter.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, Councilmember Allen, staff.

My name is Dean Hunter, founder of the Small Multifamily Owners Association.

I'm here today in formal opposition to the DC Water Billing and Disconnection Act, the True Act, and the Grid Act.

I'll submit written testimony detailing our concerns with each of these proposals.

However, I'd like to use my time today to address the broader issues these bills reflect.

We are not dealing with isolated legislation here.

We're operating within a policy environment that is not producing the intended outcomes.

And that is no longer just a perspective of housing providers.

We've been saying that a long time.

They stated clearly that DC remains one of the most hostile jurisdictions in America to landlords.

More importantly, identified the core problem.

Current policy in the district is not improving affordability.

It is contributing to deterioration.

Housing costs remain high, and affordability is under pressure.

Key indicators in the market show clear signs of distress.

Multifamily values have declined significantly.

Sales are increasing under pressure, not strength.

Foreclosures have risen.

And in a recent survey of approximately 750 housing providers, two-thirds reported periods where income did not cover basic operating cost in 2025.

At the same time, the district is struggling to attract investment, particularly for affordable housing.

Capital is pulling back, lenders are tightening, investors are choosing other markets.

This is not a stable environment, it is a contracting one.

And the consequences are already visible.

The district is losing naturally occurring affordable housing.

Not because demand disappeared, but because the financial model to operate this housing is breaking down.

And when operating conditions deteriorate, affordability does not improve, it disappears.

This is not just affect housing providers, it affects tenants.

Policies that introduce uncertainty, cost, and operational complexity into housing do not create stability, they produce the opposite.

When providers can't manage costs, investment slows, maintenance deferred, and housing quality declines.

This is how policies intended to protect tenants work out working against them.

And in the District of Columbia, this burden falls disproportionately on small landlords.

About 80% of the district housing providers are small landlords.

They don't have reserves, they don't have compliance infrastructure.

They depend on stable income to operate.

Yet they're being regulated as if they're institutional operators.

And this misalignment is a structural problem.

And the bills before you today continue that problem.

The disconnection, billing, and disconnection act takes control of utilities away from owners while leaving them with a liability.

The True Act creates compliance traps that can restrict rent collection.

The grid act adds new costs and risk tied directly to property operations.

Individually and collectively, these proposals increase costs, reduce control, and introduce additional uncertainty in the housing operations.

So the question is how do you stabilize the system?

First, slow this down.

Proposals that can carry significant financial impact on housing browsers should be evaluated thoroughly and independently.

Each one of these bills should have its own hearing.

Secondly, engage in real impact analysis independently.

This policy should be grounded in financial modeling and economic reality.

Third, differentiate small housing providers.

They're not the same as large institutional providers.

They can't bear the, they don't have the resources to deal with the compliance.

Without this distinction, providers supplying naturally recurring affordable housing will continue to exit the market.

Let me close with this.

Housing costs are rising, affordable housing is being lost, investment is pulling back, and they're all connected, they're being shaped by policy.

The greatest threat to affordability in the DC rental housing market is not the market, it's not landlords.

It is this council.

And if current trends continue, affordability will not improve.

It will continue to erode.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to Mr.

Jones.

Good morning, Chairman.

Good morning, Mr.

Chairman, members of the committee, and the council members at large as well as staff.

My name is Eric J.

Jones, and I am a foreciner in Washingtonian who has the honor of serving as a Vice President of Government Affairs, DC Commercial for the Apartment Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington, or AOPA.

As an organization, we will submit written statements on all the bills before us today.

In a matter of time, however, I will highlight concerns with two pieces of legislation, the True Act and the Grid Act, due to time.

However, before we start, I will say this.

This isn't about creating an honest dialogue and working to solve the problems of a district.

If it was, Ayola would have been contacted before these bills went to hearing.

They would have been continued during the legislative drafting process.

If it was, a yoga who signed up fourth, according to limbs would not be in the teams when they testify, allowing those who signed up much later who agree with the legislation to all make their statements beforehand.

It's time for us to stop having conversations about political issues and start impacting the district in a way that improves the lives of us all.

With that in mind, I'll first speak to the True Act.

While the True Act talks about the openness and transparency of the utility process, it creates several concerns with landlords.

A, as Mr.

Hunter recently uh pointed out, it creates traps and barriers that landlords don't always have a willingness to comply with.

We all know that utility costs are going up for commercial, multifamily, and individual homeowners.

What we don't always know is exactly why.

This legislation specifically states that landlords are the reason that tenants don't know what's going on.

And many times landlords have the same questions.

What we need is to work with the council on policies that allow landlords to be open and transparent with their tenants while not setting traps that many landlords are unable to complete.

This is a realistic way to go about this that we're not addressing, we're not approaching, and we're not dealing with.

As it relates to overall cost in the conversation about giving us more sustainable and long-term tenants, one of the things we don't discuss is landlords are responsible for these costs.

These costs have to be passed on, and once a tenant is in the property, we can't get rid of them for not paying their utilities.

At the same time, we cannot increase rental costs at a way that allows us to absorb those costs that we're forced to pass on.

But this legislation will require us to pay those bills even if we can't collect it from our tenants.

This does nothing to provide sustainability in arguably one of the worst rental markets in the country when it deals with delinquencies.

That is how we should be approaching this issue as opposed to feel-good legislation that doesn't really move the needle but deals with the concerns that we see on the front page of the paper.

Now to the grid act.

For many years, the council and the government at large have been looking to deal with utility costs, green green sustainability.

As a member of the DC Sustainable Energy Utility Advisory Board, I understand firsthand the work being done in the district.

But what I would tell you is that this legislation offers concerns, not because landlords are against solar, but how this is being done does not address the issues that we have to deal with on a daily basis.

A, there is no requirement that the individual or companies that actually attach these solar panels, small or large, to these balconies are licensed and bonded, which means any damage being done is a responsibility of the landlord.

B, there's no requirement that the tenants have riders within their rental insurance that provide these same protections.

C, there's no requirements that the electrical systems within these properties are evaluated by electricians to ensure that the actual item being installed complies with the requirements or the best services for those systems in those buildings.

On top of that, there's no looking at the fact that some of the buildings, many of which in the district that are multifamily are not as new.

Some of them are older, have been remodeled.

And looking at standards, requirements under things of construction course coordinating board and other areas that actually talk about integrity of these balconies could be sustainably, I mean severely damaged by just attaching things to the balcony without these understandings about engineering abuse and things of that nature.

These calls will be put on the backs of landlords to take care of without giving us the ability to increase rent to cover these costs, without allowing us to claw back any of this money, which in the long term only means we will be forced to forego maintenance to keep the upkeep and preserve these same properties, many of which are those nationally carrying affordable properties that Mr.

Hunter previously talked about.

If we're looking to deal with this issue, start by working with landlords who've done the right thing and done a good job and stop trying to make political statements.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Next, I had Maya Brennan from the coalition who's joining us virtually, and then after that, Mason Grove.

Hello, uh, good morning, Chairman White and members of the committee.

My name is Maya Brennan.

I'm the chief housing officer at the coalition.

I'm here to testify because our members recognize the importance of acting on utility costs and access, but we are very glad that the committee has scheduled this hearing.

However, over the last several years, the district's rental housing has experienced severe threats from rising costs, unimaginably low rent revenue, and a lack of housing finance options to help restore a stable base.

We feel fortunate that our elected officials have taken the rent averse crisis seriously, and the conversations are also beginning to recognize the cost side of the crisis as well.

In the written testimony that I will submit, I will detail a little bit more about the cost side of the crisis.

But today we are here because we want to make sure that the committee is clear about the implications of the bills today for this crisis.

Some of the bills before us could make rental housing instability in DC worse, while others offer a way to help tenants with high utility costs without putting their buildings at risk.

Specifically, we oppose Bill 26, 595 and Bill 26105, support Bill 26243, and believe that Bill 26443 could be promising.

I'll explain our positions briefly now.

We oppose this because although transparency about charges associated with a rental unit is essential, the information requirements in this bill are over the top.

The bill creates owners, paperwork, and property management staffing requirements for housing providers and adds complexity to leases beyond what is useful for any party involved.

There are some specific lines that need to be uh drastically reduced about what would need to be added to the lease in order to make that clearer and more uh simple and straightforward.

At lines 131 to 132, the type of information there about prior utility cost information is not a labor-free effort, nor will it actually tell the next tenant anything reliable about what their costs will be.

So we oppose that for that reason.

Uh, there are further uh segments of this bill that would draw property and management staff away from their core responsibilities simply to allow monthly inspections of submetering equipment by tenants upon request.

That does not seem like a good use of property management time, considering all of the other things that an affordable housing property needs to do.

For Bill 26105, we recognize that this bill has a good rationale, but believe that Bill 26443 offers a better approach to the same problem.

So the improving tenant access to water bills amendment act would allow a tenant to obtain a copy of the property owner's DC water bill and make a direct payment to DC water in lieu of the same amount in rent.

In theory, that could be useful to make sure that tenants don't face a water cutoff, but in practice it's written far too broadly.

If the DC water bill is not substantially delinquent, tenants should not have access to the bill or the ability to make a direct payment for it.

This is why we oppose this bill, but we are open to working with council members on improvements that would reduce the intended consequences.

And we do see Bill 26443 as a potential avenue there.

Unlike the prior bill, it only relates to delinquent water bills.

We therefore see it as a promising approach, and in addition to only relating to delinquencies, it also offers some avenues to reduce the risk of disconnection in the first place.

Finally, for Bill 26243, Automatic Enrollment for Utility Affordability Programs Act, we believe that this bill offers a very useful way to help DC's income qualified residents more easily access utility help through automatic enrollment.

For both subsidized and unsubsidized affordable housing properties in DC, it is essential that the residents have access to all of the resources that they are permitted and are that they are eligible for.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And Mason Grode, let me turn to you next.

Yes.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen, committee members, and council members.

My name is Mason Growe, and I am a staff attorney with Rising for Justice, RFJ, a private nonprofit law firm that has provided free legal services to low-income DC residents since 1969.

Through the tenant justice program, I represent tenants facing eviction for unpaid rent and lease violations, including unpaid utilities.

I'm here today to express RFJ's support for B 26595, the True Amendment Act, with some proposed amendments.

Utility bills are often unpredictable, and despite our best efforts, reducing them is difficult.

However, access to water, electricity, and heat is essential.

A home should be safe and clean, not just a shelter.

These measures give tenants clear expectations about housing costs and offer stronger protections to help them remain stably housed.

I urge the committee and the council to pass the True Amendment Act without delay to ensure DC tenants have the protections and transparency they deserve.

Greater transparency is essential because tenants don't always understand what they're agreeing to.

For example, many tenants assume that electricity for common areas like hallways and exterior lights is included in the rent.

In reality, these charges are often listed as a separate common area electricity bill, which is passed along to tenants in addition to their individual PEPCO charges.

This bill's approach of requiring transparency, not just in the lease, but before payment of an application fee is simple and impactful.

Informing tenants of the full cost, including all utilities, helps tenants apply only to apartments that are truly affordable for them.

It sets a clear expectation from the outset, helping both the landlord and the tenant approach the contract with a genuine understanding.

Second, the enforcement provisions in 2B are promising.

Although rent increases are prohibited for noncompliant buildings, tenants may still face eviction for the undisclosed utilities.

Introducing a penalty to render undisclosed charges unenforceable ensures that tenants are not penalized for costs.

They were not given a fair opportunity to understand.

And finally, RFJ strongly supports most proposed changes to the court process for utility cases.

Like nonpayment of rent cases, utility cases are financial matters and should be redeemable with a filing threshold.

Currently, because utility cases are filed as lease violations, they're not redeemable.

Allowing redemption does not harm landlords as they either recover payment or regain possession, both of which make them whole.

Furthermore, payments to the landlord are usually applied to rent first, often leaving an outstanding utility balance even when tenants try to pay toward both.

As a result, landlords can file for eviction over unpaid utilities with no minimum threshold.

So even if a tenant owes only $50, they can still be evicted because the payments apply to rent first.

The proposed filing threshold would prevent this and align with standards for non payment of rent cases.

So if utility cases are to mirror rent cases, RFJ would recommend one amendment, excluding late fees from the redemption amount.

In landlord tenant court, the redemption amount cannot include late fees.

They're separate discretionary measure that should not be the basis for eviction.

That same logic applies to utility cases.

The one way in which utility cases should not mirror rent cases, however, is in the notice period.

RFJ opposes the language in Section D, changing the pre-suit notice period from 30 days to 10.

This is too short a time to expect tenants to come up with hundreds of dollars, especially when, unlike rent, utility bills fluctuate from month to month.

RFJ also works with many tenants who have vouchers and are unaware they owe utilities because they believe the voucher covers it.

Expecting them to pay within 10 days of the notice is inequitable.

Tenants who fall behind on utilities aren't just holding that money in their pockets.

They've lost their income, been injured, or had a crisis.

So giving tenants adequate time to pay before bringing them to court also avoids unnecessary use of court resources.

On a similar note, RFJ asks the committee to consider including language that would strengthen coordination between billing utility billing practices and district assistance programs.

Because utilities paid to the landlord are not labeled as rent, housing choice vouchers often do not cover them.

So DCHJ pays the rent to keep the tenant housed, only for the tenant to get evicted for unpaid utility bills.

Finally, while today's testimony focused on the true bill, I want to note RFJ's support for B 26243, which would improve access to affordability programs and have a positive impact on tenants who qualify for multiple services but struggle to navigate for various application processes.

RFJ also supports B 26105, B26443, and B26124, each of which will help its clients fulfill their utility obligations.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome any questions the committee may have.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And thanks to everybody on this panel.

All right, this is gonna be a little bit of a mediator panel as we kind of get into some of these pieces.

So thank you.

I'm gonna by media mean going into some of the legal definitions that we have here.

So for example, uh, Ms.

Browder, I'm gonna start with you.

You mentioned that these bills require a natural person to be named the primary account holder.

Could you just say a little bit more about that?

It's my understanding that this is the current requirement of DC water, for example.

And I'm aware that beneficial owner information is not always available in other DC databases, but DC water should require an actual person, a natural person to be listed as the primary account holder.

Can you just kind of flesh that out a little more about why you think that's important and where you see the problem if it's not?

Sure.

So I um I don't know if that is their actual rule or regulation that it has to be a natural person, but having done a lot of these cases, a lot of times in practice, what is listed is the owner, which could be an LLC.

Um, and so I think this ties back into the same issues with DLCP and having beneficial owners not be required to be natural persons, although that was my understanding of the 2020 law.

I don't think that's how it's happening in practice.

So when you are, you know, you may have one beneficial owner that has 15 LLCs.

And for us, it makes it difficult to one, trace back and find an actual person to speak to and to say, hey, this water bill is outstanding, what are we going to do here?

And then when we do have to file a case, um, also making that process more difficult of finding who we need to serve, having someone come to court.

Um, so having a natural person be on the hook will one allow both legal services providers and DC water to look and to see, hey, I have 10 buildings with this one owner who is delinquent.

We need to look into this issue, and maybe they can have some different remedial properties processes.

And for us to look, you know, we are doing systemic work, and so we're trying to look and see where, you know, where can we have the biggest impact here?

And again, if we see one natural person who is delinquent on 10 or 15 water bills, or their water bills are 50,000 among them, it just helps us to be able to help the most tenants.

Okay.

Could you share a little more based on the information that's in the temporary legislation that's in effect right now?

Has legal aid worked with OAG, people with obstacles council, OTA, and been able to successfully assist residents, avoiding disconnections with the language as as it is in the temporary law.

Yes.

Um, that has been very helpful.

I think DC water without, you know, this is my speculation because I have not seen as many water disconnections come across my desk that I think that they have changed because I think they heeded your admonition that um, you know, this is not what we want to be doing, particularly in the winter, and they have slowed down their process of multifamily disconnections.

Okay, all right, that's helpful.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Hunter.

Want to ask you around, I'm trying to wrap my head around your opposition to the grid act, which reduces red tape and lowers costs.

And it sounds like part of what you have advocated for and I think for a while is trying to make it easier to do business in the city.

So help me wrap my head around why you oppose cutting red tape and lowering costs.

Without going into the specific details of the bill, which we'll do in writing, it's my impression that the bill adds new cost and new risk tied directly to property operations.

How?

Again, I don't have to go into the bill line for line, which I will do in writing, but it imposes additional burdens.

How doesn't it give it?

Does it not give uh tenants the opportunity to uh impose uh or install solar uh uh with without you mean are you talking about the balcony solar?

Yes.

Um it does, although just like in Utah, which is also passed the same legislation.

If uh landlord wants to put in the lease that you can't put it in, they're allowed to do that.

The tenant isn't able to override a landlord's direction or lease.

It's permissive, it allows it if the landlord approves it.

If your landlords say in the lease, we explicitly prohibit any of this, that's the terms of the lease.

And and you we have to look at these bills.

We have to look at these bills in the totality of the impact of all of them, while each one little thing may seem like one little thing.

The reality is that the cumulative impact, DC is an outlier right now.

We agree, right?

Uh DC is uh is unable to attract investors for their affordable housing.

The whole purpose of us passing the rental act was to uh in fact make DC more attractive.

And when we impose policies that are unique, that are novel, uh, with that are experimental, uh, we discourage investment.

The reality of the matter is we need to spend more time.

I need to spend more time on each and every one of these proposals to see how but when you come in and say you oppose it.

Yeah, we do oppose it.

I'm trying to understand it.

I do oppose it.

We oppose we oppose everything here except the uh I and I misspoke when I when I first testified.

Uh we we oppose we oppose every bill except except the access to uh access access to uh utility assistance.

That that's the only measure.

Yeah, I'm telling you why.

Because right now the district is an outlier.

Right now, uh landlords and and providers are are distressed.

We've lost one billion dollars in rent.

We have another billion dollars at risk in the DC's uh affordable portfolio.

We cannot get investment in the city, and now we want to impose unique model, novel laws on housing providers that are not being implemented anywhere else.

And we're doing it in a manner which is not which is not feasible or sensible.

Perhaps if with each one of these, each one of these bills should have its own hearing.

Each one of these bills should convene stakeholders, each one of these bills should show in detail what the economic and physical impact is on housing providers and the market.

And until that's done, yes, we oppose them.

Got it.

Okay.

I don't think of Utah as a bastion of experimentalism.

Uh fairly conservative place.

Twenty-four states have introduced and are debating similar legislation.

Um but I would hope if you come in to say you oppose something, you actually even know what's in it.

So that's the part of my own.

You made it clear.

And you should let me be also clear.

With the another reason I oppose it is because you've got to just differentiate between small landlords and large housing providers.

These burdens, these regulatory burdens, these uh these these imposition of of uh of these requirements without the landlord's approval or permission, do not impact the Mr.

Hunter, I think.

I encourage you to read the bill because one of the things you're gonna find is it reduces the regulatory burden, it reduces the red tape and lowers the cost, which I think is consistent with what you have advocated for.

Let me be perhaps.

Perhaps.

And the reason.

Anything that has any potential for any adverse impact to a housing provider should not be moved at this time.

Well, this is the hearing.

So I I it's a hearing on three different bills.

We get five minutes to discuss it.

But we will put more in writing specifically on the objections to it.

Please do.

Because let me be clear.

The part of the problem that we have with the housing industry right now is because of measures like this that were well intended that you pushed, right?

That you pushed, that would now we see red tape and low work.

No, no, no, we we we dismissed cases because they had technical errors.

We sealed the eviction records.

We were refused to contact tenants.

All right, Mr.

Hunter.

This this legislation, I when you get a chance to read it, I think you're gonna find that it actually is.

We're gonna write it in the very specific opposition to it, but again, it's the cumulative effect of these measures.

The the real problem, the real culprit is DC water.

Now that's what we should be talking about.

How do we control DC water?

How do we deal with DC water like other jurisdictions deal with DC water?

So what do you know that on the receivership?

Mr.

Hunter, hold on, please.

Yes.

So if uh again, on I welcome you to read the bill so you can give us testimony, because it actually does a lot of what I think you do want.

So what do you recommend?

Rather than saying you oppose everything, what is it, what's your idea of the other.

Well, you were talking when I was when I was made recommendations.

And the recommendations were one to slow it down.

Slow this entire process down.

The legislative process.

So where we have an opportunity to review these measures, look at the impact.

You've had a year.

Look at what we those were introduced a year ago, Mr.

Hunter.

This here's not fast.

This very these these these hearings uh combines all these measures together.

The the housing community just we just got through with the rental act was dealt with uh eliminating protections that were put in place five years ago during the pandemic.

Let me finish.

Do you understand that when a when a receivership is put in place on a on a property, it triggers a foreclosure?

It automatically triggers a foreclosure.

And when you trigger a foreclosure, landlords aren't paying their utilities because they don't have the ability to do so.

They don't have the ability to do so because they could not collect rent.

So again, it triggers a foreclosure, the property goes in foreclosure, the landlord can't pay the utilities, it further wells down, it is a vicious loop.

What the recommendations is slow it down.

The recommendation is look at the fiscal and economic impact independently.

And the recommendation is to differentiate small landlords from large institutional providers.

All right.

I look forward to when you get a chance to read the bills on the hearing today to give us your feedback, because I think you'll actually find some alignment there.

Well, no, I gotta move.

There's other folks.

So when you get a chance, I would I would welcome it.

I read the bill and we're opposed to the bill.

Thank you.

But you can't tell me what's in it.

So yet let me know when you're when you have a chance to welcome your testimony.

So let me turn to Ms.

Brennan for a second.

Um of the things that I heard you distinguish between is bill 26105 and bill 26443.

So when we talk about um specifically the water utility, and I you know, maybe I'm saying this because I authored Bill 26443, but it sounds like you support that approach to try to help protect um for uh what information is necessary and how we go about any type of water disconnection.

Is that did I hear your testimony the right way there?

Yes, that is indeed correct.

Um the the approach in bill 443 felt like it was a very promising opportunity and idea where delinquency is really clearly defined, the approaches to make sure that there are opportunities to get that paid through either receivership, which we would definitely have some technical questions about that I'm sure we would be able to talk about and work through uh before this goes to markup if it does.

Uh but that the approach in there really seemed like it was taking the issue, looking at it in a more uh in a more fine-grained way and finding a way to resolve it that would uh respect all the parties involved.

Got it.

Okay.

Um I appreciate that.

And as we draw those different distinctions, I think that's important.

And so um we'll continue to look at that and welcome more feedback and recommendations you have there.

Um Mr.

Jones, I wanted to ask it.

Sounds like you might be similarly aligned with Ms.

Brennan around the True Act and Bill 26443 when it comes to how to define and address water disconnections.

Would that be fair?

Or let me give you a chance to respond if you think they're a little different there.

So uh thank you, thank you for the question.

Uh we need to see more detail on it, and that's our concern.

We actually met it without our regulatory uh group within uh AOBA, and these were the two bills we spoke out along with the group.

I spoke about long the grid act, and we had various members, both small and large, state the same thing.

There's not enough clarity there, and one of the things we will outline, I mean we let will lay out in our written testimony, which you will have in the next few days, is specifically some of those details because we do have some concerns about the specificities of how it's done.

And that's the piece we're more worried about.

It's not about the overarching idea, but specificities.

One thing if I may have 10 seconds, it was mentioned that landlords can evict someone if rent is paid in whole and the utilities outla it is left available at an outlet cost of $50.

That is legally incorrect.

The district law under DC Code 42-3505 states the landlord cannot file for eviction if a tenant does not owe at least six hundred dollars.

So as we talk about this and talk about how this is done, we have to also understand the other parts of district quote, and that's what what is in effect, so we know how this actually impacts landlords.

Okay, I appreciate that.

I think that was something you heard another witness share, and so that was your per se perspective there.

Okay, and I'll let um Ms.

Grow, I'll come back to you, give you a chance to respond if you want to on that.

The other piece, Mr.

Jones, I was going to ask you about so modeling this after legislation that's already passed in Utah, because you raised the um concerns around, for example, the I think you had said the uh integrity of the structure, balcony structures and concern around that.

Um the way that this was written in another state, which I think addresses those concerns, which is it preserves the landlord's ability.

So, for example, if the landlord says, I don't want balcony solar, I I explicitly write that into the lease.

Um, this does not prohibit a landlord from saying, I don't want solar on my balcony.

I don't want to have these things.

It's permissive, but it still preserves the landlord's right if you say this is my property and we're not going to have solar, which models what other states have done.

That's I think addresses the concern you shared.

We can certainly follow up to make sure you feel like there's greater clarity around it, but that's what I was hearing your concern around is any type of um additional liability that a building owner might have to have or any type of structural integrity concerns.

But I just want to be clear the legislation preserves the landlord's ability to um disallow if they so choose.

Thank you for that question.

The reason I brought that up is because we had no less than three different landlord tenant lawyers state that they did not believe the law.

Well, I'm sorry, the bill specifically stated that it wasn't clear to them.

So they were very concerned about that.

If that is in the law, we have no problem with that.

We did not see that clearly stated in the law.

Got it.

Okay.

I I believe it I believe it is in also because it was passed in other state, but I'm happy to follow up with you um separately to make sure because I think that is the intent is that while we want to be permissive and allow, uh it does not write over, for example, a property owner's ability to say this is what is or isn't allowed on a balcony.

What if the follow-up with that?

Council member, what if the lease has already been been written years ago and was not renewed?

You know, leases are not automatically renewed in the discount.

You don't have to, right?

Because the Tennessee continues.

So the the issue would be why not give a landlord an affirmative ability to reject or accept it rather than say it just it has to he can put it in the lease.

The lease could be already written, and this could be done years after the lease.

Now you're coming with an idea.

I like it.

Well, we didn't like to do that.

Mr.

Grove, uh sorry, let me turn to Ms.

Growe so that you have a chance to respond to what Mr.

Jones had said.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh so the DC code provision that uh the other witness referred to uh DC Code 423505.01A1.

It specifically refers to nonpayment of rent.

And so the code section states that nonpayment of rent cases cannot be filed if the unpaid rent is less than six hundred dollars.

We see that in cases all of the time.

Uh I handle both lease violation cases, which is where utility issues are filed, and eviction cases for nonpayment of rent, and the $600 filing threshold only applies to the nonpayment of rent.

The true act would make that extend to the utility issues, which since they're both financial matters, it makes sense.

But utility cases currently have no filing threshold.

Okay.

Well, I'm gonna I don't want our witnesses to go in an extended back and forth debate, but I do I did want to make sure I gave you a chance to respond to that, and I certainly follow up uh Ms.

Grow and Mr.

Jones on that so we can uh as the committee can follow up.

So I appreciate it.

All right, this is a great panel.

Thank you all very much.

I appreciate it.

Um I know we've got more witnesses, so I'm gonna keep us rolling, but thank you all very much for your testimony.

Our next panel, panel number three, we have Mark Rodifer, a public witness in person.

Claire August with Sierra Club DC Chapter joining us virtually.

Barbara Briggs with Sierra Club DC Chapter joining us virtually.

Mateus Postian joining us virtually, Pastor Michael Campbell joining us virtually, and Nicole Rince, Director of Market Development Policy with New Columbia Solar, who I think is in person.

Yes, in person.

Uh so Mr.

Rodifer, we've got you up first.

So while we uh promote our panelists on Zoom, as Ms.

Rentz makes her way up, I'll let you go ahead and get started.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, uh Councilmember Allen uh for the opportunity to testify today about these important affordability bills.

Uh my name is Mark Roder.

I'm uh volunteer leader with the Sierra Club DC chapter.

Um uh but Claire August, as you said, is giving the Sierra Club's official um testimony at this hearing, and she'll be outlining our views on the grid act.

Uh the Sierra Club supports legislation to reduce utility rates in this time of rising costs.

But we must note the underlying problem with gas and electric rates.

Poor regulation from the public service commission and poor oversight of utilities for the eight long years that Kenyon McDuffie had utility oversight in the DC council.

The poor regulation and poor oversight has made the utilities rich.

While McDuffie sat by PEPCO and Washington Gas won massive rate increases that hurt DC families.

Public Service Commission Chairman Emil Thompson told the Washington Post that the PSC has shaved off a small amount from each rate increase, but he defended huge infrastructure projects, we agree are needed.

The Sierra Club believes that the only people who agree with Washington Gas and PEPCO that wasteful projects that raise rates on DC residents are needed are Emil Thompson and fellow Commissioner Ted Trabut.

We don't think ratepayers agree that utility rate hikes are needed.

Analysis published in the 51st shows that DC's electric rates have increased at twice the rate of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and 50% more than Maryland.

So why is that?

The answer is simple.

Poor utility regulation from Emile Thompson and Ted Trabue and non-existent oversight from the DC Council under Kenyon McDuffie.

The Sierra Club supports the energy affordability measures before this committee today, but we think it's time for the DC Council to address the significant underlying problem for gas and electric ratepayers.

Poor utility regulation by the PSC and non-existent DC Council oversight of utility regulators for nearly a decade.

Councilmember Allen, it's time to stop these runaway rate increases.

Thank you very much.

Next let me turn to Claire August, who is joining us online.

Hi, Councilmember Allen, thanks for the opportunity to testify at this legislative hearing.

I'm Claire August.

I am a Ward 6 resident and I'm representing the Sierra Club District of Columbia chapter today.

We are America's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, and we have millions of members and supporters, including 7,000 DC residents.

Today I'm testifying on the Grid Act and the Utility Disconnect Protection Act.

The Sierra Club is commending Councilmember Allen and the co-sponsors of the Grid Amendment Act of 2026 for recognizing and tackling the problem of unexpected costs and protracted delays in interconnecting solar arrays to the grid and thus allowing residents to begin producing renewable energy.

We also support the ability of DC residents to generate their own solar energy through what we colloquially call balcony solar.

The Sierra Club supports the Grid Amendment Act as an important step in creating and growing more accessible and affordable options for our community to mitigate soaring energy bills while generating local zero carbon electricity.

First, residents and businesses should have a clear understanding of the costs and timelines of interconnecting newly installed solar arrays, and those costs and timelines should be reasonable.

They should be fair and they should be consistent.

Solar owners should not be billed a much higher interconnection fee than originally estimated, and they should not have to shoulder the entire cost of an otherwise needed grid update upgrade.

These extra unexpected and unexplained costs disincentivize the growth of local solar electricity deployment in DC at a time when utility costs keep rising and residents and businesses may be choosing to control their costs through installing solar.

By officially delegating the Public Service Commission to set up a fair system for PEPCO to quote explain and charge interconnection fees, the district is creating and enforcing fair rules of the road to ensure these fees aren't an undue burden on folks wanting to install solar and therefore reduce emissions and costs.

And by requiring PEPCO to publish and maintain median interconnection costs online, anyone who is solar curious can better understand the full picture of the costs associated with installing solar from the start.

We also appreciate that this bill addresses balcony solar, a growing energy source popular in Europe.

Balcony Solar can provide the financial and environmental benefits of solar energy to those who, for one or more reasons, can't install solar on their home.

For those who rent their home, live in a condo or co-op building, or can't afford to pay upfront for or leasing solar on their home, or if they have a roof too shaded to install solar, traditional residential solar may not be accessible to them.

Balcony Solar is a solution that provides access to a smaller amount of locally generated renewable energy for a much lower upfront investment of as little as $600 with costs likely to drop as the market opens.

In January of this year, the UL Solutions launched a testing and certification program for balcony solar systems, meaning that there's equipment in the U.S.

market that has met nationally recognized safety standards with features protecting against electrical malfunctions.

In the U.S., only Utah has made balcony solar legal and exempt from utility interconnection fees, and Virginia is on the way with a bill sitting on Governor Spamberger's desk.

DC DC should be the second state to do so, affirming that utilizing a small plug-in solar panel that can offset even a little bit of our daily energy use should not encounter the same interconnection and permitting process as a rooftop solar installation.

With this bill, DC can empower residents with the most accessible and affordable form of renewable energy generation while reducing demand on the grid.

We're also urging the council to enact the Utility Disconnect Protection Act.

This legislation will protect our most vulnerable citizens from loss of gas and electricity during the hottest and coldest months of the year.

Energy is a basic necessity in today's world.

Without energy, people can't heat or cool their homes, preserve or cook their food, carry on their lives after sunset, or use a phone or computer to perform any of the myriad business and personal tasks that must be handled online these days.

Power outages are highly disruptive for the most fortunate of us, fortunate of us.

To people living on the edge, disconnection from energy can be anything from a major setback to a dangerous health impact.

When someone can't sleep because their home is unheated or extremely hot, their work or schooling is compromised.

The inability to eat at home because everything in the fridge has spoiled and you can't turn on the stove, forces you to choose the costly option of eating out, putting you further into debt.

It is under these circumstances that utilities expect the customer to pay all past due amounts before just reconnecting.

That is neither realistic nor cautionable.

It could lead to prolonged disconnection or to borrowing money at excessive interest rates, putting a family even further behind.

Far too many DC households are energy burdened.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify in all of your action on these important issues.

Thank you very much.

Next, let's turn to Barbara Briggs, who's also joining us online.

And Ms.

Briggs, we need you to accept the panelist request, and we can get you on.

So why don't we go?

Jean Stewart will have you go, and then we'll come right back to Ms.

Briggs after that.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Chairman, Council members and staff.

My name is Jean Stewart, and I'm a 56-year resident of Ward 1, and I am a renter.

I'm also a longtime advocate for environmental justice and for residents of our city and for DC's commitments to combating climate change by reducing the greenhouse gases emitted mainly by our buildings.

As such, I am concerned about the rapidly rising rates of our electric and gas utilities.

My own rent is going up effective next Wednesday, but I have no idea what part of that increases because of gas and electric rate increases.

For this reason, I'm speaking in support of the transparent rates and utility expenses amendment act or TRUE Act, which would provide me and all other renters in DC with the information we need to understand what may be exorbitant rate increases by PEPCO for electricity and by Washington gas for those of us renters that have gas stoves, heat and hot water.

Knowledge is power, and for we renters who want to challenge high-rate increases, we need to know specifically what part of our rent payments are going to support electric and gas utilities and how landlords determine and calculate these charges.

Thanks to a recent court decision, PEPCO's recent electric rate increases improved approved by DC's Public Service Commission was determined to be based on faulty and incomplete data.

Further, the PSC keeps approving more rounds of funding for Washington gas' expensive and wasteful project types as more and more homeowners transition away from using gas.

That would mean we renters are going to get stuck with higher and higher rates for gas.

And those of us on fixed incomes would find that particularly challenging.

It'll give us the knowledge and power to push for properly based electricity rates for obtaining electricity from clean and renewable sources instead of dirty fossil fuels, and for advocating that our residential buildings move away from using methane gas toward obtaining electricity from solar and other clean and renewable sources of energy.

With the kind of specific information from my landlord as required by the TRUE Act.

As a renter, I'll have better data to advocate with the PSC for better and more just rate and fuel source decisions, and with the council to insist on the kinds of funding in the DC budget that will support the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner and much less expensive energy sources.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Stewart.

Um Barbara Briggs, I think we've got you on now, so let me turn back to you.

Yes, thank you.

Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to testify.

Uh Sierra Club strongly supports the proposed automatic enrollment for utility affordability programs act, which would require that DC's Department of Human Services and Department of Healthcare Finance provide DOEE with enrollment data for their income qualified programs so that DOEE can enroll households in its own utility affordability programs.

Other states have done this already.

Maryland passed similar legislation in 2023, resulting in increased enrollment in Maryland's energy assistance programs.

In other words, more eligible families are actually getting the assistance they need.

B260243 will help address DC's high energy burden.

Households that spend 6% or more of their income are on energy are considered to have a high energy burden.

A 2024 report by ACEE found that in DC, half of low-income households spend over 8% of their income on energy, and 25% of low-income home home owner homeowners spend over 16% of their income on energy.

This law will directly help low-income households by providing them with easy access to programs that lower household energy burdens.

This bill will also reduce collateral damage caused by energy insecurity.

Utility shutoffs create health risks, especially for the most vulnerable, including children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

Bill nonpayment can create credit issues and be a major stressor for households who must juggle paying utilities and other household essentials.

B26243 is also good policy in the context of DC's commitment to clean energy transition and achieving net zero emissions by 2045.

Long-term moving to highly efficient clean energy systems will reduce will uh reduce enormous and will produce enormous energy cost savings.

Uh it will lower health care costs due to less exposure to pollutants and reduce climate-related damage to the ecosystem that we all rely on.

But in the meantime, it's important that DC provide adequate support to help its residents weather this period of change.

As more and more households move off clean energy, the cost of maintaining the gas system will fall to a dwindling number of ratepayers, so delivery charges will increase.

Low-income households especially will need more help.

DC has made good, proactive, a good proactive start by establishing programs to support home electrification and energy efficiency, but making sure that low-income households have access to the support they need while they still rely on gas is also crucial for a well-planned energy transition.

There's more detail in our written testimony, but long story short, Sierra Club strongly supports the passage of B 260243, which will provide immediate just and fair relief for low-income households, assistance that will be especially critical as DC navigates the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me go to Mr.

Pastiana.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen.

My name is Matthias Postian, and I live in Ward 4.

I testify today in strong support of the Grid Amendment Act of 2026.

About three years ago, I personally installed a balcony solar system at my mother's house in Germany.

The experience was fast and simple.

I ordered the system online.

I could have gone to the equivalent of Home Depot and got one and put it in my car.

It arrived in uh with the mail.

And then I plugged it into a standard outlet of the balcony and I started uh generating electricity the same day.

There was no lengthy approval process, there was no engineering study needed, there was no uncertainty about timelines and costs.

As a result of these features, more than a million households in Germany have adopted balcony solar systems.

The systems are safe, they require little money up front.

They lower utility bills within hours of deciding to go solar, and the initial investment is paid back in about three years.

After that, they save money for another 20 years.

This is exactly what your bill would begin to enable in the District of Columbia.

The provisions allowing residents to install plug-in balconies solar without going through the full interconnection process is absolutely transformative.

The bill recognizes that small solar systems mainly serve self-consumption and do not materially feed into the grid.

For renters who have permissions from their landlords, or for owners without rooftops that are suitable for solar, balcony solar is often the only way to benefit from clean energy and reduced monthly bills.

Just as important, your bill fixes the interconnection process for larger systems.

Right now, one of the biggest barriers to solar in the U.S.

is not the cost of the technology.

It's the cost of the process.

Lengthy delays, unclear costs, unpredictable timelines, they drive up prices and discourage people from installing solar.

The grid act addresses this directly by setting clear deadlines requiring timely utility responses and improving cost transparency.

It ensures the customers know what to expect and how long it will take and what it'll cost.

In my opinion, grid upgrade costs shouldn't even be the responsibility of individuals who apply for interconnection.

It should be the responsibility of the utility and spread out across all ratepayers.

That's because the benefits from grid upgrade costs are also much go much beyond than just the individual applicant.

Your grid act doesn't go that far, but it makes important improvements in the right direction by giving greater certainty about costs and your interconnection timelines.

I applaud you and your committee staff for uh drafting those legislation, and I strongly urge the council to pass the grid act.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to Pastor Campbell.

I think Pastor Campbell's online.

So Nicole Rentz will turn to you in person here.

And if we're able to get Pastor Campbell on, we'll bring him back.

Okay, now it's not there.

Um Thank you, Chairperson Allen and the committee for the opportunity to s to testify today in support of the grid act.

I'm here today on behalf of Chessa, the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association, also a Ward 6 resident.

Um Chessa represents over 100 member companies in the solar and storage industries operating in the um in the district and in Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware.

Our purpose is to promote the mainstream adoption of solar and battery storage throughout the electric grid in order to realize a stable and affordable grid for all consumers.

We're a recognized state affiliate of the solar industry, energy industries association.

We support the grid acts efforts to reduce the cost of solar in the district by setting utility permitting deadlines and increasing cost transparency, establishing an interconnection ombudsman at the public service commission.

Chessa member companies report that solar installation in the district costs almost a dollar more per watt in the district than it does in Maryland, largely due to the soft costs of interconnection.

Chessa has been raising the unpredictable interconnection timelines and high interconnection costs to the district's public service commission for at least the past five years.

We filed three clean grid advisor studies with the commission in 21, 22, and 23 outlining these concerns.

The reports found millions in soft costs and significant lost solar generation potential in just the sample of projects that they reviewed.

For example, the 2022 study detailed DC residential solar interconnection concerns and across the sampling provided by five local installers representing hundreds of interconnections over the previous year.

The projects averaged uh five kilowatt downsizing requirement per project and about a 10,000 upgrade cost per project, um, extrapolating across the district's total annual volume.

Clean grid found that um this represented about 500 kilowatts annually in lost solar system capacity and or um over 1.6 million in required system upgrade costs.

Um in 2024, Tessa filed a position for rulemaking to make improvements to the commission's interconnection rules in line with the recommendations in the reports and in uh rules and with rules and other jurisdictions.

In response, the commission established a technical uh conference on interconnection, which has been meeting now for over a year.

PEPCO filed the group's first interim report in December 2025, but the commission hasn't yet acted on it.

Um for the past several years, the district has had strong solar incentive policies that combined with the federal tax credits have offset the increased soft costs here.

Um growing local solar to about 5% of the district's energy mix.

Now with the sudden elimination of that decade's old federal solar tax credit in the one big beautiful bill act passed by Congress last July, um, addressing soft costs has become urgent.

The one year exception to that act expires in three months, and after that, the cost of solar will begin to increase by the amount of the sunsetting tax credit, 30%.

If the district can improve interconnection soft costs over the next year, we could help offset the loss of that tax credit and potentially keep installation rates relatively stable despite the loss of the federal incentive.

Um given how long interconnection permitting has been driving up the cost of solar and the nearness of the elimination of the tax credit, we support this bill and offer a few recommendations aimed largely at uh increasing its impact and avoiding unintended consequences from processes that are working.

Um among these are amending cost sharing provisions to establish a capital interconnection fees for residential customers, along with a mandate for automatic um installation approval for systems that pay the fee and strong oversight mechanisms to monitor the expenditure of the funds collected.

We also encourage adoption of other provisions that have reduced soft costs in Maryland, including limiting interconnection upgrade costs, deposit costs to 50% of the cost estimate, and implementing consolidated billing for community solar.

Finally, um we recommend adding provisions aimed at catching the district up to other jurisdictions that are deploying batteries for the benefit of their ratepayers, um, beginning with a requirement for the PSC to implement a time of use rate aimed at uh providing benefits to all ratepayers, and a voluntary one, by the way, and a virtual power plant compensation mechanism aimed at um coordinating deployment of distributed generation at the most impactful times for reducing rates for all customers.

Distributed generation from solar is the primary form of in-state generation available in the district and the fastest to deploy, making it the first line of defense against rising PJM energy capacity prices for grid energy.

Um doing what we can now to generate more of our electricity here and reduce our reliance on PJ and electricity will benefit ratepayers, the local economy, and the environment, returning benefits to district residents in spades over the coming years and decades.

Thank you, Chairperson Allen and members and staff of the committee, and I'm available for any questions.

All right, thank you very much.

Ums August, I might start with you.

I appreciated your testimony in support of the grid act.

Um kind of we picking on the word you used, which is just kind of like fair rules the road for helping install solar.

From your perspective, what you hear from residents, why is it important just to have a more fair and consistent just rules the road?

Yeah, um, installing solar is already a like pretty large if you're paying upfront for it financial commitment.

Um and so people who are making this decision are going into it knowing and expecting that they are prepared for that part of the financial commitment.

Um, but if the costs are increased, both just because PEPCO is charging a higher amount than otherwise expected, um, or because the um costs from the service provider are increased because of time delays, um, that can really put our wrench in their like any residence decision to go solar and could potentially um lead people to just throw in the towel and decide not to go solar at all.

Um, so we really want to avoid that, and we also want to avoid the alternative where they do go solar and they get um an unexpected extremely high bill because a lot of folks are going solar to manage their electricity costs, and that is just it that's not in line with that goal.

Got it.

Okay.

Well, that kind of makes me pivot a little bit to Ms.

Rentz a little bit.

You know, one of the things that you know you you you advocated for the different policy positions, I think that will help manage costs.

Just looking at where we are today, though, and what we've been seeing.

Um I feel like I have heard pretty consistently is that the inconsistency of either timeline or costs or interconnection fees, or residential standpoint makes me make some people say, well, I'm gonna get it, maybe I'll back out of it.

But from a standpoint of new businesses, DC based businesses.

But from a standpoint of new businesses, DC-based businesses, what has been the experience for our small or medium-sized firms, um, how much does that inconsistency challenge their ability to finance, to hire, to create jobs, to be able to be successful businesses.

I mean, it's a it's a big impact, right?

Um we as I mentioned in my testimony, uh, our members report that you know the soft cods costs add about a dollar, almost a dollar more per watt for solar in the district.

I mean, that directly impacts the benefits that we can provide the customers who install solar systems.

It also impacts how many people we can hire, how many systems we can install overall, how much uh of our financing goes towards how many systems.

So their impacts across the board from sort of lack of predictability that just drives up costs across the boards.

The unpredictability and um potential for high costs, really it's the delay and timelines that can occur.

Um of the clean grid advisors reports, the one from 2021 noted that some uh of the large of the sort of small commercial and larger systems had seen delays from after they installed their system to receive an utility permit uh to operate of a of over 400 days.

I mean, that's that's a huge lost revenue potential from energy generation and also carrying, just carrying construction loan costs and stuff like that.

If we can improve those timelines and make them more reliable, which is really what's important, we can um we can drastically reduce the soft cost of solar in the district and provide way more benefits to our residents and our businesses.

Yeah, I yeah, I think part of the conversation throughout the day, rightly is going to be on how is it that we can help lower costs, make it more affordable for the resident, the working family, for the person who's just trying to pay the bills and pay the rent, put food on the table.

And I think the legislation that we have in front of us, the the package of bills are getting at it in different ways, and that's part of the job today is to kind of hear the pros and cons of each approach and how we're doing this.

The other part that doesn't get talked about as much, I think is around how uncertainty is the worst enemy for small businesses.

And if we want to be part of a city that is growing, that is on the forefront, that is adding new businesses, creating new jobs, and being on the edge, the front edge of an industry, then we have to create greater sense of certainty.

And the unpredictability and inconsistency of what it takes, who's gonna get what surprise cost for interconnection, what's going to be the amount of time it takes.

We are if we want to have a growth agenda, if we want to be a city that is growing, like we're shooting ourselves in the foot constantly.

And so I see that this legislation is not just about how do we help lower costs and just make it a little bit easier uh to be able to afford to live in DC.

It's also about how do we help grow a business and how do we help support those local businesses that are doing the things we want, creating new jobs and being successful?

So I appreciate you kind of helping highlight that because um I just don't want that to get lost in the mix of what we're also trying to create with this.

Yeah, thank you.

Um Mr.

Pastian, I was gonna ask you at least it is today.

I think there's a pretty huge gulf between the experience you described uh with balcony solar on your mother's home and the interconnection process that exists for larger systems.

Beyond the challenges of just the process or restrictions on balcony solar, are there any technical barriers to wider balcony solar adoption in the US?

And what I'm kind of getting at here is is there anything physically different about a European outlet that has the impact or impacts our reliability, for example, or safety for balcony uh solar projects, or is the main difference just the regulatory environment in which we live.

I think it is mainly the regulatory environment.

Um the outlets, you know, look a little different, you know.

Uh the prongs are a little different, but the technology is basically the same in either of those cases.

You know, outlets are rated for certain uh you know, electricity voltage and the system stays well below that.

The main difference is really the attitude towards enabling uh really widespread participation from folks who are normally not accessible to solar, who don't have access to solar.

That really is a big deal and made a huge difference in also in the way that people think about this resource.

You know, we sometimes think about this as something for folks with deep pockets, all of a sudden it's accessible to a really wide set of people of uh people of all incomes.

Yeah, okay.

I appreciate that.

And would you, you know, we in the earlier panel um again, 24 states I believe have a balcony solar proposal in front of them.

Uh, Utah's already moved forward and is moving towards implementation.

Um, in DC, for example, we've got buildings or you know, where a condo association has said uh you can't hang a DC flag on a balcony.

You you know, they they're prescriptive in terms of what is and is not allowed uh on balconies.

And I don't see anything that would prohibit a landlord should they choose to say this is part of our our condo rules, as part of our co-op rules uh about what you can and cannot put on your solar or put on your on your balcony.

So it seems to me that what we're trying to create is the permission to be able to do it.

We might still have some landlords that say, I don't want you to do this, they write it into the lease, it becomes part of uh maybe a co-op or condo association.

Um I would hope and probably wager that the residents themselves will actively work with their condo or co-op board to maybe change those rules if they see the benefit to it.

But anything you see different uh about that approach that a landlord could choose to say it's got to be explicitly in the lease or else you can't put it on the balcony.

Yeah, that was the case in Germany where the original balcony law did not say anything specifically about about it, but the rules of the game are that just because you're a renter doesn't mean you can do anything on the property of the owner.

And you do need you do need uh the consent, even if the original authorizing legislation was silent on it, it meant that the landlord um would uh be able to point to existing you know rules.

I I can't do anything on a property that I rent that alters aspects, especially of the exterior, right?

So basically the rule was well, I can't also just without the you know landlord's consent, just mount uh you know who knows what painting on my exterior wall or something like that.

I always need consent of the landlord whenever I do something with a property that I rent that is that is um you know um altering it.

Um and so that was the case.

Um, and then years into the process, um, there was more clarity um about guidance in the law that um allowed renters by right um to install that.

That was a separate piece of legislation that's yeah.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate that.

I mean, that's I think that's the the take here, too.

I mean, just I think back to the previous panel.

I I think one representative, I think, had genuine questions around what does this look like, how do you structure this?

Uh, but I also think another person, it's important to call it a red hair, a red herring when you see it.

Um, and so I I don't want people to walk away with that impression here.

All right, uh I appreciate it.

I know we're running a little behind on public witnesses, so I'm gonna move us along and go to our next panel of public witnesses and appreciate this panel's testimony.

So, next let me call panel number four.

I'm gonna go ahead and start calling folks as we bring them up.

We have Ann De Boys, public witness, Jesse Tompkins, public witness, Keenan Rusk, public witness, Michael Daly, Director of Policy and Regulatory Affairs with Carbon Solutions Group.

Soraya Jayante, public witness, Jeffrey Barron, public witness, and Hannah Ellis, policy and legislative coordinator with Bright Saver.

Oh.

All right.

Ann, I see that you're here and joining us virtually, so why don't I turn it over to you to kick us off and we'll keep working on promoting uh the other folks onto the panel while we do that.

Thank you.

Chair Allen.

Good morning.

My name is Ann DeBuyes, and I live in Ward 3.

I'd like to thank you, Chair Allen, for taking the initiative to originate the Grid Act, as well as thanking the other council members, Robert White, Zachary Parker, and Brianna Doe, who have introduced legislation that protects vulnerable residents who face heavy utility bill burdens.

Regarding the Grid Act, I see two overarching considerations.

One is that PEPCO wants to own all of the districts' distributed energy resources and attempts to stifle competition, particularly as regards solar energy.

And two is that the public service commission has not moved forward with interconnection regulation or oversight at the pace it should have.

Thus, the increasing need for the council to take action.

We noticed that the commission's formal case 1050 to consider the implementation of interconnection standards was opened 20 years ago.

As one example, over the past year plus, the 1050 technical conferences have yet to fully take up the topic of an interconnection ombuds, which PEPCO has opposed, by the way, and which might or might not be discussed at the next conference on April 30th, but is already addressed in the Grid Act.

Plug-in solar panels have proven their value, and this highly accessible technology, as enabled through the grid act as a brilliant end run around.

PEPCO's often unreasonable intercollection interconnection delays and costs.

I recognize that the Commission did take a necessary step to expedite the interconnection of distributed energy resources because of the sunsetting of the federal investment tax credits by creating the temporary conditional interconnection program.

Thank you, Commissioner Beverly.

But overall, the council finds itself in a position of needing to regulate the regulators.

I can think of several policy and regulatory areas where the commission has been slow to act and which the council could attend to under a future renewable energy omnibus bill, including incentivizing battery energy storage systems to maximize the benefits of solar power generation, mandating time of use rates, and instituting performance incentive mechanisms with built-in noncompliance penalties.

In drafting legislation, it is advisable to consult closely with the excellent staff at DOEE as well as with other experts.

DOEE can ably develop programs to support the deployment of the distributed energy, distributed energy resources in the district.

The council could then direct the commission to conduct rulemaking and implement DER programs, establishing deadlines in law for the Commission to meet.

Unfortunately, I'm out of time to speak to the other important legislation before the committee.

Please see my written testimony.

My sincere appreciation for holding this hearing today to hear statements from the concerned public.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to Jesse Tompkins.

I'm not sure if I have Jesse Tomkins here.

All right, Keenan Rusk.

Michael Daly.

All right, Mr.

Daly.

Chair, thank you and thank you to the committee.

My name is Michael Daly, representing Carbon Solutions Group, also known as CSG.

CSG works to deploy rooftop solar and geothermal resources throughout the mid-Atlantic.

First off, let me say CSG supports this bill's goal.

And in that context, I'm here today to respectfully propose a very narrow amendment to lines 298 to 301 that we believe would further support this bill's objective of protecting DC ratepayers against volatile energy prices.

The amendment, which is included in my written testimony, addresses the ability of geothermal systems to participate in the renewable portfolio standard, also known as the RPS.

I'd very quickly like to just tick through what current statute allows for geothermal, what the bill would do, and then how the proposed amendment might alter that.

So currently geothermal systems currently qualify for the RPS if those systems are connected to the regional grid that serves DC, known as PJM.

Just for reference, DC imports about 98% of its power from PJM.

The legislation, on the other hand, would limit geothermal participation in the RPS to only systems located within DC.

So you're moving from the grid region to DC only.

Importantly, neither the statute nor legislation distinguishes between the relative grid benefits of financing new system deployment and the benefits of financing legacy systems.

The proposed amendment would seek to retain the current PJM qualification for geothermal systems, but limit that to only newly installed systems in order to better maintain grid benefits.

So this is very technical.

Why does this all matter?

You know, notwithstanding some of the local issues mentioned today, the underlying challenge that this bill seeks to address is a fundamental supply-demand and balance.

Geothermal heating and cooling technology is uniquely positioned to meet this challenge by virtue of its leveraging 24-7 renewable energy from underground.

The core value of this technology is the grid value, namely geothermal reduces peak power demand and reduces seasonal power consumption.

By reducing demand, geothermal can unlock more electric supply to serve the PJM grid that in turn serves DC.

Unlocked power can help correct the supply-demand imbalance, negatively affecting DC ratepayers.

Again, the bill, however, would constrict RPS participation to only geothermal systems located in DC.

Our belief is this would lead to fewer systems coming online.

So in that sense, we are opposed to constraining the number of systems that can help alleviate grid stress.

However, again, the grid benefits of geothermal systems are largely premised on recent installs.

So safeguards we believe are needed to ensure that RPS funds only support recently installed systems that support the grid.

So once again, to recap, uh the proposed amendment included in my written testimony would achieve two ends.

One, support grid affordability by allowing the RPS to continue to incentivize systems located in the PJM region that serves DC, but two, ensure that those RPS funds only finance impactful systems, and this would be achieved by limiting uh qualifying systems to only recently installed systems.

I realize this is technical, but it does have a material impact for the district.

Um I thank the committee for considering.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Um I don't believe Saria Jayante was here online.

So uh Mr.

Barron, we're gonna turn to you next.

And then Ms.

Ellis will come to you after that.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak about the proposed grid act.

I am Jeffrey Barron.

I am a retired social worker.

I chose that profession because I care about people and that they be treated well.

Now in retirement, I devote my energies to slowing climate change because I also care about the beautiful ecology of the earth and want to preserve its ability to nurture human and all life.

So I started a climate action group at my synagogue, Temple Micah here in town.

We now have 125 people whom I engage with regularly.

And I am also the co-facilitator of the DC chapter of Third Act, whose goal is to protect the climate and democracy with 500 DC members.

Fossil fuels damage our health, pollute the environment, and are making our weather weird, dangerous, and destructive to our economy.

Now, President Trump's war on Iran shows that fossil fuels are also unreliable and expensive.

People all over the world are moving to solar.

It saves money, doesn't pollute, and doesn't mess with the weather.

Here in DC, people who want solar are running into roadblocks caused by PEPCO's slow processes and erratic and excessive charges to install it.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Other communities have figured this out.

PEPCO is a big profitable company.

They can learn from other jurisdictions and figure it out too.

I like the proposed Grid Act because it will demand and empower our local public service commission to hold PEPCO to account.

Under the Act, PEPCO will have to create more efficient and fair processes.

I like that the Act will also have the Public Service Commission work with the People's Council to help smooth the way for customers who are trying to go solar.

And the Act will let DC citizens try out solar and save money by letting us buy a solar panel and simply plug it into the wall.

DC residents, like people everywhere, want to move our health, our budgets, and our communities away from being shaped and controlled and damaged by the volatile and destructive forces of fossil fuels and toward the savings, cleaner and healthier environments, and local control that solar power is ready to provide us.

The grid act will help us to do that.

I can't wait.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Barron.

And Ms.

Ellis, let me turn to you online.

Thank you.

Dear Chairperson Allen and members of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

My name is Hannah Ellis.

I represent Brightsaver.

We are a national nonprofit dedicated to building a plug-in solar movement in the United States, making solar ownership affordable and accessible to everyone.

I'm testifying to encourage the committee to support the Grid Act and specifically its language supporting plug-and-solar technology.

Passing this legislation would allow the people of the District of Columbia to access plug-in solar, a technology used by millions of people in Germany, but restricted in the U.S.

due to outdated utility interconnection rules and a lack of regulatory clarity that treats small plug-in devices as the same as large rooftop solar arrays.

This is a market-driven solution requiring no tax credits or public funds.

It's just cutting red tape.

This year, already 30 states have introduced legislation, with a few more expected to do so.

And the district's neighbor, Virginia, has already introduced similar plug-in solar legislation that has passed both chambers and is on the governor's desk to be signed in the next few days.

For far too long, apartment dwellers and those who couldn't afford rooftop array now have a way to access clean renewable energy.

Approximately 57 to 59% of households in the District of Columbia are renters, making it a renter majority city with one of the highest rental rates in the country as well.

This technology ensures that access to clean energy is not limited by housing status.

In addition, plug-in solar reduces electricity bills and improves energy resilience.

By directly supplying power to household appliances, these systems reduce the amount of electricity households must purchase from utilities.

While we enthusiastically support the grid act, we also recommend including language on preventing unreasonable HOA covenant or landlord restrictions.

In closing, the grid act represents an important step towards expanding access to affordable, safe, and consumer-driven clean energy in the District of Columbia.

We respectfully urge the committee to support the grid act.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much.

All right, a couple of questions here.

All right, Mr.

Daly.

Um wanted to ask.

Excuse me, sir.

Let's not walk in front, please.

Um Mr.

Daly, I wanted to ask you.

Your proposal is uh what you're calling a narrow amendment on geothermal RPS language.

I don't know if you've had a chance to take a look at testimony from DOEE and the public service commission later on, but my understanding is they may be raising some of the same concerns.

Are you are you aware that that's uh you may be in alignment with that?

Uh I did see PSC spoke to that.

Um yes.

Okay.

And we'll obviously go to this with PSC, but do you believe that your recommendation is in alignment with the concerns as you read it from the PSC, or is yours more narrow and you think maybe their perspective is broader than yours?

Um as I understand it.

Uh this proposed amendment from CSG would be more narrow.

My understanding is PSC is simply saying um we shouldn't address the geothermal qualification um period, basically leave it as is.

Um what we're saying is retain that PJM siting qualification as is, but create effectively a commercial operations date threshold for participation.

So there's a little more delineation in that sense.

Got it.

Okay.

All right.

We'll make sure we follow up on that.

Um, but I think it's it's definitely an issue I think we're gonna hear come up a couple of times throughout the day, so we'll drill down a little bit more and take a look at your specific recommendation.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Um but if I did I hear your testimony correct that if I as you look at the totality of the grid act, you're in support of the bill itself, but your your focus or concern is on that narrow piece.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I would know.

We're a member of Chessa and you know support their comments on the solar provisions.

Um it's really just this specific geothermal issue that that brings me here today.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Ellis, appreciated your testimony.

Um you stated, and I actually was curious because we want to uh it came up earlier today.

So uh Virginia, uh not an experimental state, uh, passed balcony solar um just a couple of weeks ago in both houses and the governors expected to sign it.

I think you shared that, right?

Correct.

Okay.

Um and in looking through their legislation, their legislation actually prohibits landlords from banning those devices.

Um, our draft doesn't.

Our draft is more permissive.

Um, but just want to highlight that, perhaps for the colleagues from our previous panel so that they're aware um of the law that might be in our region and might pay attention to that.

Um they do seem to they put a cap, I believe, of up to 1200 watts on their systems in Virginia.

Um, and didn't know if you had any thoughts around whether legislatively it's wise to put a cap on a you know on a on a certain size or not.

Um I think we're agnostic to uh to the wattage cap, um, though, just for the council's um information, almost all um uh uh legislation that is being introduced has a wattage cap.

Okay.

All right.

Um I mean, and to convert it to the general public, 1200 watts is gonna be dependent upon the size, roughly three or four panels is is the maximum allowed per dwelling.

Correct.

Do you know, and I'll we can take a look at this, but do you know of other states in a do they define dwelling as a unit or as the building itself?

It really depends on the state.

Um states include language that says per meter or per dwelling.

So it really depends each state uh defines it a little bit differently.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um let's see.

And then Mr.

Boys appreciated your testimony and also you know encouraging us to continue to go further with incentivizing battery storage, DERs.

Um I know you follow a lot of the PSC dockets closely.

Anything else that you wanted to share around the concerns that we may be hearing from either Department of Energy Environment or PSC later today on the Grid Act.

In particular the geothermal elements.

I'm sorry.

Excuse me for interrupting.

I'm not sure what concerns we're going to be hearing.

Okay.

I wasn't sure if you had seen that before or not.

If not, that's right.

I have not.

No, I haven't.

I just there's a fine line in creating this legislation.

I want to echo what Claire Mills has said.

Not to be too prescriptive.

Setting setting deadlines feels like a good idea.

And then requiring the commission to act on a timeline.

And more to say in my written testimony on that.

Got it.

Okay.

I appreciate it.

I know you ran out of time, so you have a lot more, so we'll make sure we read through the written testimony too.

Thank you.

All right, excellent.

Okay, thank you very much to everybody on this panel, and we'll move to our next panel.

All right, as panel number 29, I have Paul Ramshaw, or sorry, panel number five, witness number 29.

Paul Ramshaw, public witness.

Brett Matilis, public witness, Gail Lillyveld, public witness online, Cody Austin, public witness online, Ava Morgan, public witness online, and Cosa or Casa Bullock, public witness.

And to Mr.

Ramshaw, I understand that your testimony you wanted to be able to play an instrument.

We we don't have a plug.

So I invite you to say your testimony if you'd like, or if it is perhaps in a different format, we could work with you to make sure it gets submitted in the way you prefer, which we could do separately.

I just wanted to highlight we don't I don't have a plug at the at the desk.

It is your three minutes.

And so if you want to do it, a cappello, we can do that.

You just go around, sir.

Sure.

If you'll push the buttons, the red light comes on.

There you go.

Thank you.

I'm testifying in favor of the grid act with a song that I learned on the web by Googling Folk Song.

Climate change fossil fuels.

And this is a song by Sawan Dukta, who lives in India.

Are your summers getting hotter?

Your winter's more extreme.

In the floods and forest fires, do you hear the planet screen?

The disappearing ice caps, tsunamis and the droughts.

Are we on a dying planet with no way out?

Tell us who decided this and why.

Who pulled the trigger?

Condemned us all to die.

How did this happen?

Who decided this and why?

Who pulled the trigger?

Condemned us all to die.

Global warming.

Can you feel the planet change?

We're killing our future.

Don't you think it's strange?

This is a warning.

Can you feel the planet change?

We're burning our hometown.

Don't you think it's strange?

When the last living humans are crying out loud, will they flaunt their GDP under their killer carbon shroud?

When every living creature around us has died, too late to feel regret that we never really tried.

Could we have changed the way we lived and learned to share?

Reduced our carbon footprint through recycle and repair.

Ditched the fossil fuels and switched to other ways.

Did we consume the earth in our mad consumer race?

Global warming.

Can you feel the planet change?

We're killing our future.

Don't you think it's strange?

This is a warning.

Can you feel the planet change?

We're burning our hometown.

Don't you think it's strange.

All right, thank you very much, sir.

Uh next let me turn to Brett Motilis.

Debra is that right, Brett?

Metoulus.

Matules.

Okay, thank you.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairperson, uh, for allowing me to speak in favor of the grid act today.

My name is Brett Matulis.

I'm a resident of Ward 6.

The interconnection issues addressed by the Grid Act are extremely important, but I want to use my allocated time today to speak specifically about the plug-in solar provisions within this bill.

As you know, plug-in solar panels are small portable systems that can be easily installed by just about anybody.

If you can plug in a television, you can plug these panels in.

No professional installer is required, and this makes them by far the cheapest way to get clean energy quickly.

The simplicity and the portability of these panels also makes them accessible to renters and to families that can't afford the major investment of rooftop solar.

With the cost of living rising every day, this is one of the quickest, most immediate ways to reduce energy bills for families right now.

Another reason that this batter this bill matters to me is that clean energy is the foundation of a healthy future.

As climate changes and we see more frequent health disasters such as wildfire pollution and extreme heat, we need to trans uh transition to a clean energy uh economy rapidly so that we can improve our community's health and well-being.

Uh finally, in the time that I have left, I want to touch on the safety considerations of these panels, because I'm aware that the Public Service Commission has raised concerns in their testimony.

I believe these concerns to be unfounded and demonstrate that the commission is yet again placing the interests of utilities ahead of affordability and the interests of DC residents.

The fact is, this technology has an impeccable safety track record with millions of units installed around the world.

And in fact, safety is precisely the reason we need this legislation to ensure that only safe certified products are on the market.

Passing this law and regulating manufacturers is precisely the way to prevent unsafe products from being installed in homes.

What we can be sure of is that unregulated, uncertified products will continue to be placed in service without the standards that this law could put in place.

Passing this legislation will ensure that plug-in solar is safe, not the other way around.

So I urge the council to pass the grid act, and thank you for allowing me to uh testify today.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Uh next, let me turn to Cody Austin, who's joining us online.

There we go.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Councilmember Allen.

Uh, my name is Cody Austin.

I'm a DC resident in Ward 3, uh tenant, an environmental advocate.

Today I'm expressing my support for the Grid Act and the Utility Disconnection Protection Act.

Um, these bills would increase, or the grid act would increase access to plug-in solar by removing outdated interconnection and permitting requirements and streamline the district's solar interconnection process.

Currently, PEPCO's unpredictable and costly process is slowing down local solar deployment.

In DC, PEPCO's average last year for uh interconnection was 77 days to interconnect small solar systems, while states like Nevada and Texas take less than 30 days.

PEPCO charges uh exorbitant amounts of money to install these uh to install rooftop panels, sometimes as much as 100,000 while needlessly dragging their feet in uh interconnecting them.

This discourages DC residents from pursuing clean affordable energy, uh, resulting in abandoned projects and wasted resources.

DC tenants deserve far more protections against the price gouging carried out by private utilities and landlords.

Unlike DC homeowners, we tenants are forced to pay outrageous rent and utility prices that skyrocket every year.

Even in my rent-controlled unit, my rent has increased by $500 per month in just five years.

The grid act would allow residents to bypass the cumbersome process of getting approval for rooftop solar, instead providing portable panels that can be easily plugged in.

This uh plug-in solar technology will save runners 10 to 30% on their electric bills.

This would allow more electricity demand to be met and lowered with privately funded clean and local generation.

As we're as a result, our grid would be less overwhelmed and we would save all ratepayers money as PEPCO wouldn't need to invest as much capital into gas-fired power plants or expensive grid upgrades.

Further, plug-in solar is better suited to improve energy equity.

These resources these small resources resources can be localized in the communities that need them the most, uh, particularly black, brown, and income uh eligible communities.

These resources can transform the lives of the 64% of low-income families in the district that are currently energy burdened.

Regarding the Utility Disconnection Protection Act, I support safeguarding the protected households from disconnection.

However, I would urge the council to uh go a step further and prohibit utility providers from disconnecting residential service for any residents at any time of the year rather than restricting it to specific types of residents at specific times of the year.

Since climate change is making our weather more volatile and difficult to predict, we should ensure all DC residents are protected year-round.

Utilities should be treated as a basic human right.

We must transition to a public utility governed by district residents for district residents.

But until this is done, these bills would improve tenant access to more affordable renewable energy while re while reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Austin.

And then I don't believe we have Ava Morgan, just double checking.

And I don't believe we have Casa Bullock.

All right, just double checking there.

All right.

Um thank you all very much.

Um last name again for me because I messed it up.

It's all right, it's Metulus.

Metulus.

I can't want to go back to Mautilus.

Metulus.

All right.

Brett, um I really appreciate you highlighting the safety issues.

Um here's the thing.

While you were testifying, I just jumped on Amazon.

Um I can buy an entire system and having it shipped to my house right now for a pretty big system for $1,400.

Uh if I believe the advertising, uh plug and play, it's going to save me about 40% of my electric bills.

Um I think it was a 80-watt system.

Um I can do that right now.

I have no idea from a safety standard perspective.

It's not dissimilar to actions that this council and this committee is taking, for example, around lithium-ion battery standards.

So we have micromobility devices that have batteries.

And where we saw in other cities, um, some of those batteries actually caught fire because they were poor quality, they were not standardized, they didn't create a regulatory system to say, yeah, we're gonna have batteries, but it's got to meet these safety standards to to be uh acceptable.

Um there is nothing stopping somebody from going out and getting one of these right now.

But I don't have safety standards to it.

And that's part of what this legislation does.

Um, so I guess to some degree we need to maybe let the secret out.

Uh, you could put plug-in solar on your balcony right now, but we have no way to make sure we have a regulatory system to keep and make sure those are safe systems.

That's that's a little bit different than what we heard from others who are just saying, hey, this is a great way that people could help generate some electricity, uh, save some money with existing systems and technology.

Anything I'm saying out of line?

Do you that make sense?

That makes absolute sense.

I appreciate that you've uh looked into that.

It is a little bit of the wild west right now.

And by authorizing this, setting the standards, certified products come onto the market, they'll be safer than the conditions that we have right now.

People are installing these.

This is that's the fact of the matter.

Um by passing this law, setting those standards, we ensure that the products will be safer.

Yeah, I agree.

And again, uh the Commonwealth of Virginia um not known as a you know experimental place, Utah, not known as an experimental place.

Like they've already passed laws around this.

Um I wish that we were actually on the front edge.

Turns out we're not as much on the front edge as I thought.

Um so I don't want to play catch-up, but I think that's a that is a distinct and important argument that you've laid out is that we need to be able to ensure the regulatory framework around these because we have an inherent interest in making sure that they are safe.

Um so I really appreciate that.

Um, and I appreciate the advocacy you've had around this to make sure this gets brought to our attention so that we can provide this option for folks, uh, which again um, especially for renters or others, may not be able to put a solar system on the rooftop of their home, but this is a way that they can actually help cut costs and um and do so in a way that uh they can become their own little power plant by having a little bit of energy generation on site.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh let's see.

For Mr.

Austin, um you talked about, I think part of what you're calling for is a little bit different than what's in these bills, and that is you're you're advocating that we should be transitioning to a public utility overall.

Is that correct?

Uh as a long-term policy goal, yes, but I am also acknowledging that these bills would be a step in the right direction.

Okay, yeah, I just want to make sure that I heard your testimony correct.

Your supportive of these efforts and the legislation that's in front of us at the hearing today.

Your advocate, your your testimony is say, hey, go even further and laying out recommendations of what you think should go further.

Exactly.

Um I think a lot of the problems stem with PEPCO's profit motive and that leading to the subsequent rate hikes we've seen in the past years for uh lots of DC residents.

residents.

Got it.

Okay.

All right.

That's helpful.

All right.

Well, I really appreciate everybody's testimony today and your advocacy for these efforts that helped push to make sure that they're part of the introduced version and look forward to continuing to work to get this over the finish line.

So thank you all very much.

Thank you.

All right.

Let me move to our last panel of public witnesses.

And then after that, we've got a number of other witnesses that we'll turn to representing different government or agencies.

But let me turn to Daniel Climmer, public witness.

David Dickinson, public witness.

Elizabeth Akinwande, public witness.

George Hubbard, public witness.

Karen Gladding, public witness.

Katie Reese, public witness.

Say Goodson Bell with Solar United Neighbors Action.

And Chris Sewell, Managing Director and Founder of Uprise Solar.

I saw him here earlier, but he may have had to go.

All right.

So I think we have Karen Gladding, Katie Reese, and Saylor Goodson Bell.

Okay.

All right.

Karen Gladding, we'll start with you.

Thank you, Chair Allen, for this opportunity to testify in favor of the proposed Grid Act.

I am Karen Glading, and I'm here as a 13-year resident of D.C.

with a commitment to make this city a better, easier, more affordable, and more sustainable place for all to live.

I'm very excited about all the provisions of the Grid Act in enabling residents to lower their utility bills and move us toward our communal clean energy future.

As you know, the ending of federal tax credits for rooftop solar installations has significantly impacted the adoption of solar energy.

So it is more important than ever that we make all other requirements for solar installation as easy, quick, and predictable as possible as a way of encouraging residents to continue to adopt this clean energy source.

Interconnection fees and wait times have been unacceptably long, opaque, and unpredictable.

The Grid Act will go a long way to addressing these costly time consuming problems.

Although I might add that some jurisdictions are moving toward instant permitting through the NRL's solar apples.

As a condo owner, I am particularly excited about the plug-in solar provision in this legislation.

We are a dense urban area with a significant number of renters, apartment dwellers, condo and co-op owners, and residents of multi-unit buildings.

They make up the 70% of Americans who cannot install rooftop solar.

But installation of this simple device will save households about $330 annually.

Plug in solar offers a way for residents to lower utility bills and expand energy options in a city already experiencing the fastest growth in utility rates in the country.

At the same time, plug in solar will help us move toward our 2045 carbon neutrality goal.

I do have to say that giving uh landlords complete authority to prohibit plug-in devices will significantly slow adoption of this clean energy source.

It was only when Germany limited landlords' ability to prohibit installation that the adoption really took off.

I hope that the committee, indeed the entire council will agree with me that the grid act is essential legislation to help DC residents lower utility bills, provide much greater speed, transparency, and predictability in solar installations, and to help our city move more quickly toward our 2045 carbon neutral goal.

Thank you again for this opportunity to speak in favor of this excellent legislation.

And I would also like to thank the other witnesses and their testimony for enlightening me.

As to the other worthy bills before the committee today.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Let's see.

Next, Katie Reese.

Thank you very much, Chair.

I am testifying on behalf of an organization here in D.C.

I'm sorry if there was a little bit of a mix up there, but I hope you'll give me a little bit of latitude for perhaps an extra minute.

I'm Katie Reese.

I'm a longtime resident of Ward 1, been here for 35 years.

And I'm also currently the co-chair of the DC chapter of Third Act.

chapter of Third Act.

Third Act is a national organization of elders, 60 and above, who are fighting to protect our climate and democracy.

And at the national level, Third Act is working to accelerate the renew the transition to renewable energy with a particular focus on advancing solar power and democratizing energy production.

Our 500 third act members in DC share these goals, and we urge the DC Council to pass the Grid Act to make plug-in solar legal for renters to streamline the permitting process and make it affordable to connect solar panels to the power grid.

Our third act co-founder Bill McKibben in his book, Here Comes the Sun, writes that solar panels are no longer an experimental activity.

They're the cheapest way to produce produce power.

They're essentially the cost co of energy, inexpensive and available in bulk.

It's actually cheaper now than fossil fuels, making solar power an economic imperative rather than just an environmental choice.

And yet access to it across this country and right here in D.C.

is expensive, lengthy, and confusing.

And energy affordability is a big issue in this city.

A recent Washington Post article discussed how DC residents average gas and electric bills have increased about 36 percent just in the past couple of years.

And reasons include the Public Service Commission's approval of PEPCO and Washington Gas to make rate rate hike increases to cover the massive costs to build new gas line pipe infrastructure.

This locks us into a future of fossil fuel dependence and does not make any sense given that DC is a national leader moving toward electrification and carbon neutral neutrality goals.

We simply cannot meet those goals without better access to solar power.

If we want to lower utility costs, then we need more energy generation.

That there are still too many regulatory hurdles that keep people from easily accessing it affordably here in DC, which this legislation will help overcome.

For rooftop solar, it's amazing.

Americans still pay three or four times as much as people in Australia and in the European Union.

And it only has a small bit to do with tariffs and the cost of hardware.

It's the soft costs, especially the expense and difficulty of getting licenses and permits and interconnection fees.

On a personal level, I just signed a contract to get solar panels on my roof.

I'm really concerned about climate change.

That's why I'm a member and a leader in third act.

And I want to reduce my own home's dependence on gas and decrease the pollution that comes with it.

And it's already a very hefty investment that not many people can afford.

And I was alarmed to find out that the average time to connect solar is 77 days, and that if the infrastructure on my block is not sufficient, that I could be charged anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 to expand that infrastructure.

No homeowner in this city should be subjected to charges like that, which could force them to turn away from clean solar power due to the financial difficulties.

And neither should renters.

60% of the of the households in this city are renters.

They should have access to plug-in solar.

It's as many have already testified.

And we also particularly like the equity aspect of it that homeowners who have not traditionally had access to this kind of technology would be able to enjoy some of the financial benefits of going solar.

This is the democratization of energy.

So we know that Utah has done this.

We know that Virginia is just on the cusp.

Let's try to beat Virginia.

This is what we need in D.C.

Let's be the second in the nation to make it happen through the passage of the Grid Act and allow more Washingtonians to easily and affordably harness the power of the sun.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

And then Sayla Goodson Bell.

Hello.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

On behalf of my organization, Solar United Neighbors Action, I urge you all to pass the Grid Act of 2026 out of the Transportation Environment Committee.

The Grid Act removes roadblocks to local solar deployment and ensures all Washingtonians, as has been previously stated, can harness the power of the Sun.

Just for some background, Sun Action is a 501c4 nonprofit organization that represents the needs and interests of solar owners and supporters in the district and across the country.

Sun, our 501c3 affiliate, has helped more than 1,100 households in DC add 7.5 megawatts of solar to their homes and businesses.

And we represent nearly 9800 solar owners and supporters across the district.

So my comments today, though, are on behalf of Sun Action.

As has been stated earlier, PEPCO has been squeezing DC residents with ridiculously high energy bills over the past several years.

Electricity costs in the district have gone up 93% since 2020, outpacing all of those states in that time frame.

Meanwhile, PEPCO's profits have increased by 304 million dollars, a 61% increase in just five years.

Increased energy bills will make life even harder for the 64% of low-income families in the district that are already energy burdened.

As PEPCO's executives and shareholders line their pockets, more and more families are being forced to choose between putting food on the table or keeping their homes warm during this winter, during the past winter.

And in that past winter, countless customers saw their energy bills double or even quadruple compared to the year before, even though they weren't using more electricity.

This is primarily due to regional factors like hyperscale data center growth, solar interconnection delays, and an over reliance on fossil fuels.

Fully unlocking local solar and storage can protect Washingtonians from the worst of these impacts by minimizing energy bills for participating customers.

They also reduce system-wide energy costs by lowering demand and deferring investments into expensive distribution infrastructure at the local level, as well as generation and transmission infrastructure at the regional level.

Despite these benefits, PEPCO has obstructed interconnection, has obstructed uh the deployment of local solar with interconnection delays, unpredictable and arbitrarily high project cost estimates, and the neglectful management of community solar credits.

The grid act restrains some of this harmful behavior and begins to maximize the full potential of local solar by strengthening the district's solar interconnection process and expanding access to plug and solar.

The bill's interconnection reforms, particularly the data publication requirements and development of an independent umbuds office and more standardized and clear timelines will minimize disputes, limit costly project delays, and provide much needed transparency to solar developers and customers.

This strongly complements its plug-in solar provision, which could allow renters, co-op dwellers, and others who struggle to access rooftop solar, save between 110 and even as much as 330 dollars per year.

But despite some of these transformative promises, we do have several recommended changes in our written comments to ensure that none of the bill's measures backfire or unintentionally cause longer or more costly interconnection delays.

For plug-in solar, we ask that the bill set the maximum power output of the system at 1200 watts, as was mentioned earlier, to align with best practices around the country.

And we also ask that we find a way to actually prohibit any attempts by landlords or homeowners associations to block residents' access to this technology.

As you mentioned in Virginia, there are ways to do this while still giving landlords ability to have reasonable restrictions on the size or placement of the system.

For the other interconnection reform measures, we strongly defer to the recommendations made by CCAN and Chesum, and similarly think that there are certain tweaks that need to be made to the cost-sharing methodology and some of the other parts of the interconnection process.

Overall, we just want to say that we think it's best to explicitly demand that the PSC speed up and standardize these processes without being overly prescriptive in the actual law so that we can continue to maintain flexibility and adhere to best practices nationwide as technology develops.

And we and also to avoid unnecessary opportunities to uh relegislate.

So we encourage council members and their staff to work with us, other partner organizations, industry experts, as well as public stakeholders to talk through these details and nuances of those suggestions even further.

Overall, we believe that this is an urgently needed bill that can provide immediate financial relief to the district's ratepayers and put us on track to meet our ambitious and nation-leading local solar goals.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

All right.

So the danger of being the last panel is that you're testifying and a lot of what's already been said, what you said has been said.

Um, but I really appreciate the fact that you're here and advocating for this.

And one of the one of your testimony is kind of focused a lot on our um on the grid act.

And I'll be honest, I didn't know that Virginia had passed this uh when I began the day, and now I do.

Um I did not hear a gnashing of teeth and a hue and cry from Virginia when this was done.

And so I believe that Virginia, again, I don't think most people would think of Virginia as, you know, a really extreme experimental state.

So they clearly, both their House and Senate and the governor is about to sign legislation that does this.

I I'm gonna wager, I'm gonna give you a chance, would love to hear your take on this.

They view it for two reasons.

One, this is just a uh for people who cannot afford an entire solar array on their rooftop or the expense of that.

This is a relatively affordable way to immediately decrease energy costs.

Um it may not generate 100% of the bill, but it's a way to immediately start lowering costs.

Two, a state does need to create a regulatory framework for something so that you know what you're purchasing and what's legal to be uh sold in an estate um meet certain safety standards.

Am I missing something?

I can go first.

Uh I don't think you're missing anything, and yeah, I want to clarify it is waiting the signature for the governor, so I guess technically hasn't fully passed.

But yeah, correctly.

And um one of the important provisions you all included, and again, is best practices across the state is that the systems have to adhere to the uh national underwriters laboratory standards or other similar safety standards like the National Electric Code.

And also in Virginia, it removes liability from the landlords to have to cover any damages that come from the system.

And so we actually care about this, you know, being a tool for energy equity and not just lowering energy burdens, but making sure that everyone can actually participate in energy democracy can benefit from the act from access to solar.

We shouldn't really leave it in the hands of landlords because just historically we know that um they just haven't been fully aligned with the actual interests of their of their tenants.

The there's a definitely a you know a way to split it down the middle where we're making sure we protect some of their valid interests, making sure that again they aren't liable for any tenant who's unresponsibly using this uh technology, all but making sure that they can't be overly restrictive.

Right.

And I think that's the responsible approach to take as well, because from a landlord perspective or property owner, um just like any other thing, renters aren't allowed just to do whatever they want uh inside of property that they're leasing or renting.

So this creates protections, the right type of protections, reasonable, smart, thoughtful protections for the property owner, um, especially from that liability perspective you talked about, but then also allows it to move forward.

Karen, did you want to add something?

Yeah, I just I wanted to add for the state that is famous for don't tread on me, energy independence might be part of the motivation there as well.

Yeah.

It should be for all of us.

Yeah, no, I I hear you.

Um I think there, yeah, I'm your testimony is just gonna help drive home that point over and over again.

I really appreciate it.

And it's important though, also for us to build out that record uh for legislation as we're moving it forward.

So thank you.

Um the issues I think will come up is gonna be around can a landlord prohibit balcony solar.

So our legislation is drafted, allows a landlord to be able to say, I uh I don't want this.

Or maybe it's a co-op or condo board or association says that.

And I'll be honest, we've had this issue come up not too long ago.

Um, as a lot of people wanted to show their pride in the District of Columbia, wanted to hang DC flags off their balcony.

And we had condo associations that said appreciate and love it, it's against the rules, you can't be hanging flags off the balcony, right?

Um in those situations, what happened is the residents actually worked with their condo association and their co-op boards and you know got an exception to that.

If I'm reading the Virginia law, again, waiting signature, but if I'm reading it correctly, it prohibits a landlord from prohibiting balcony solar.

Do you have a strong recommendation about what we should be considering here?

Should a property owner or should a condo or co-op board be allowed to prohibit in the same way that they're allowed to prohibit what you hang, you know, what banners or political speech off a off a banner, or uh what things you can hang off the banner, or if you we have some places where you're not allowed to put um trees, you know, and big planters on your balcony.

Like we have different types of ways that uh we manage what is and is not allowed on a balcony.

Yeah, just to reiterate, this technology didn't really take off in Germany until legislation was passed that limited landlords' ability to do that.

So um, although I appreciate that there may be aesthetic reasons to limit what residents can do.

Um I personally think that in terms of clean energy, the time has come that we can't allow aesthetics to get in the way.

Um that's my my own personal resident opinion.

But I'm sure Salah has some uh important things to say around that.

I don't have much else near that, honestly.

I think as long as you address the liability concern, I think that's the only valid concern.

Um, like uh Karen just said, aesthetics should not be a reason for us not to do everything we can to fully fully beat this affordability crisis and throw all the solutions at the table.

Um again if they and we know also historically with rooftop solar, people seeing other people have grouptop solar is one of the biggest drivers of more adoption.

And so it would also just be a great way for us to get to maximize adoption, continue to get cost low, and also open the door in the future for maybe even the district having like a government program for there to be rebates to make this even more um affordable for folks.

So it's this the promise of this technology far outweighs any of the concerns that landlords are raising as long as you address the damage liability question.

And they do well in Virginia.

Would the damage and liability so for example?

Let's say let's pretend for the sake of argument here, a balcony railing is constructed, and it was constructed and designed with the intent not to hang anything off of it.

And then uh uh a tenant hangs something on.

I don't know exactly how much these systems weigh.

I can't imagine they're that much, but let's just for the sake of this example.

Um and it does damage the balcony.

Like I don't think that's an unreasonable concern for property owner of like I don't want my balcony to get damaged from something.

That's a reasonable concern.

Exactly.

The way that you are laying out that the liability or damage is on the person that put it on a on the railing.

Is that the way you're saying that the language was drafted?

Um you believe in a way that would cover that so that if there is damage, it's very clear on the tenant, not on the property owner.

Exactly.

And there would be on other parts of the premises, like if there was like a public space with more balconies, but it's like a shared space, like the tenants would not be able to put balcony solar there, according to Virginia legislation.

Um so I do think that's a good way to like again keep landlords happy without unnecessarily stifling this important technology.

Well, uh I'll I will go a little further.

I I don't think just make them happy.

I think those are reasonable concerns.

I actually don't think that's an unreasonable concern is around what would be the uh damage to a balcony or a part of that that building that you own.

Yeah.

Are there not already existing building safety codes that specify what a uh balcony must be able to support?

I mean, usually the railing around uh a terrace or such would support a small child, for instance, from falling, right?

So I don't know what the the building uh regulations are, but I would imagine that they should um support the um uh plug-in system.

Some plug-in systems are incredibly light as well.

There are options around plug-in solar.

There's not just one kind of panel, they're also smaller, more flexible ones.

Absolutely.

And I do not sit here being an expert on the construction code of balconies.

So I I just note that to say that to me is not an unreasonable thing that a property owner would say is if there's damage to my balcony, if there's damage here, that's on the renter.

Um so it sounds like the Virginia law is one I want to make sure we take a look at to see how it balances the liability or potential for damage, but still allows.

So uh I think that's that's worthy of us taking a look at.

So I don't know if Hannah Ellis is still um attending the hearing remotely, but she would have a very good overview of what is happening in other states around this.

Well, we will be able to follow up with her uh so we can make sure that we do that.

Um I would just one last thought that's occurred to me in hearing uh the comments so far is there seems like there's plenty of room for some um big education that needs to be done.

Absolutely, yeah.

Um both you know, for around these these issues that have just been discussed, but also the benefits, because I think even for you know property owners and people who are own buildings and so forth to have them better understand the benefits that this can bring overall, not just to the individual renters, um, which is much bigger than you know, does this look bad on my balcony?

Agreed completely.

And I think there's a lot of space to work with things like the sustainable energy utility.

Um if you're gonna give me a rebate for making a smart decision to have a programmable thermostat, or if there's a rebate available for um Energy Star appliance, seems this could be a really great way to also help find some ways to create some type of a rebate or an incentive that helps knock off a cost a little bit and help get more people to be able to afford to purchase this.

Yes, as long as we don't have a mayor who raids that fund.

I hear you.

Okay.

Um I don't have any further questions for uh this panel, but I very much appreciate uh all your testimony.

So thank you all very much.

All right, so we are going to transition to the next part of our hearing, which are government witnesses, uh, which is including um a couple of different panels.

What I'm gonna do is take just a five-minute recess and we'll catch our breath, change up the room.

Um, and then what we'll do is we will switch gears and move to our government witnesses where we're gonna begin with DC Water and Kristen Williams, followed by the Office of the Attorney General, where we have Beth Mellon and Emily Barth testifying.

Then we have the director of the Department of Energy Environment, Director Jackson, and Emil Thompson, the chair of the public service commission, and then panel four will be the Office of People's Council, where we have four representatives, Karen Sistrunk, Lawrence Daniels, Adam Carlesco, and Mia Tanner.

So we'll take about a five-minute recess and then we will transition over for that portion of the hearing.

All right, good afternoon, everyone.

We are back from a brief recess, just for the record, the time is 140.

Um, and we finished up our witnesses with our public witnesses.

We're now switching over to our uh government witnesses.

What I'm gonna do before we get started is do our quick swearing in an oath.

Now, DC Water are not government employees, so I you don't have to be sworn in here.

I'm gonna read out those that are.

I'm going to you can tell me, just so that it's on the record.

I am going to assume that you are going to tell me the whole truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth and all of your answers, but I I technically can't swear you in.

Um I'm gonna do this for all the panels just all at once, so we don't have to do this repeatedly here, but this is uh for Beth Mellon with the AEG's office, Emily Farth, AG's office, Richard Jackson, DOE, Emil Thompson, Public Service Commission, Karen Sistrunk, Lawrence Daniels, Adam Carlesco, and Nia Tanner from the Office of People's Council.

If you please raise your right hand, do you swear affirmative penalty of perjury?

The testimony we have to give to the committee on transportation, the environment is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Thank you all very much.

And Ms.

Williams, you promise you're just gonna even though I can't swear you in, you're gonna you you agree.

I do agree.

I assume as well.

That should get me some easier questions.

I assumed as much.

Um uh Kirsten Williams uh is the executive vice president chief administration officer with DC Water and Sewer Authority.

I know you have some colleagues at the table if you would help introduce them, and then I'm gonna turn it over to you for your testimony.

Fantastic.

That's great.

Um, I have with me to my right, Miss Loyal Lola Oyemi, who is our acting chief financial officer.

And I know you're used to Matt Brown, but Lola is Matt's protege, so she's equally as is capable.

And then to my left, we have Kelly Fisher, who is our deputy general counsel.

So with that, I will get started.

So good afternoon, Chairman Allen and members of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

As noted, my name is Kirsten Williams and I'm the Chief Administrative Officer at DC Water.

I am grateful for the opportunity to testify today and to be able to discuss all the matters before the committee.

My remarks will really focus, however, on Bill 26443, which is the DC Water Billing and Disconnection Modernization Amendment Act.

I would really like to thank before we start you and your staff for the community continued engagement we've had about these measures.

Um your effort to try to strike the right balance between consumer protections and thoughtful approaches to managing the high arrears that we have is really uh commendable and certainly something that is a testament to what you're trying to do to address all ratepayer challenges.

With respect to the remaining bills impacting DC Water, we will provide additional written submissions for the legislative record.

But I do want to note today that we believe automatic enrollment is a common sense approach to reduce barriers and connect to more eligible households to that assistance.

We have looked at the testimony of the Public Service Commission and the Department of Energy and the Environment, and we'll continue to work through the challenges that they note.

We are uh we'll also continue to work with DOEE to ensure implementation is accurate, protects customer privacy, and most importantly, is easy to understand.

We also support measures like Councilmember Robert White's bill that seek to improve tenant access to billing information and assistance programs in situations where housing providers provide inaction and create barriers.

Now, turning to the foundation of our remarks, I would like to begin by acknowledging a principle that we all share.

Water is an essential service.

We have a collective responsibility to ensure that it remains both accessible and affordable, particularly for our most vulnerable residents.

That responsibility, however, requires a careful balance between strong customer protections and the long-term financial sustainability of the system that provides these services.

As we all know, at the onset of the COVID pandemic, DC Water made a deliberate decision to pause disconnections and restore service to customers who had previously been disconnected.

We took these actions proactively based on our independent assessment of the public health emergency and the needs of our customers.

And this was done prior to the implementation of the district-wide mandates.

However, these efforts have also had severe financial consequences.

While we prioritized keeping customers connected, arrears have grown and now total approximately $32.8 million.

This context is very important in today's discussion.

The question before the committee is not whether customers should be protected.

The question is how to do so in a manner that does not unintentionally shift the cost of non-payment onto other ratepayers or undermine the financial stability and independence required to operate and maintain the district's water system.

As currently drafted, Bill 26443 introduces a series of changes to DC Waters billing, collection, and customer account management processes that, when coupled, create significant operational, financial, and legal challenges.

First, the bill would require DC Water to provide water and sewer service for extended periods without payment.

Under existing law, service may be discontinued after approximately 30 days of non-payment.

Under the proposed legislation, that timeline appears to extend to a minimum of approximately $121 days, and in certain cases, up to $181 days or longer, depending on additional protections and conditions.

This represents a fundamental shift in the timing of revenue collection and introduces substantial delays in addressing delinquent accounts.

This also places the customer in a more difficult financial situation.

As we have seen in practice, the longer non-payment periods continue without intervention, the less likely customers are able to address arrears once DC Water is able to take action for nonpayment.

Second, the bill would significantly delay DC Water's ability to secure and recover unpaid debt through the lien process.

As proposed, a minimum of approximately seven months would elapse between the issuance of a bill and the earliest point at which a lien could be enforced, with additional time required for administrative process.

This delay weakens one of the primary tools available to secure outstanding debt and manage long-term arrears.

Several provisions of the bill also present significant implementation challenges.

Most notably the submetering and tenant billing provisions would require costly system overhauls.

As drafted, the bill would require DC Water to waive a portion of an owner's outstanding balance for any expenditures made by the owner to improve water service, including expenditures to repair a leak or to submeter units in the property.

Not only is this provision costly, but it also requires verification that would be difficult to implement.

Furthermore, if tenants elect as drafted in the bill to receive a bill in their own name, DC Waters bill management would increase substantially as well.

For context, suppose there are between 3,000 and 4,000 multifamily properties in the district, let's say servicing 300,000 to 350,000 residents.

If these multifamily residents elected to receive their own bill, which would also require the property to install a submeter for each unit, DC Waters multifamily billing system would increase by a rate of up to 85 to 100 times more.

These requirements impose significant administrative burdens while simultaneously reducing or delaying revenue collection.

We estimate that implementation of this bill would require approximately 40 additional full-time employees, extensive capital investment, and increase operating expenses that would total ranging from approximately 108 million dollars to 122 million dollars.

Let's translate that into something more realistic.

These costs would estimate a residential customer's bill approximately by 34 to 38%, or 51 to 56 dollars per month if we were to implement the bill as drafted.

These impacts must be considered within the context of DC Water's financial structure.

We operate as an independent authority with fiscal autonomy established by Congress.

This independence is foundational to our ability to maintain strong bond ratings, finance critical infrastructure, and most importantly, deliver reliable service.

I should also note for the record that the district law includes a statutory pledge that it will not limit or alter DC Water's ability to fulfill its obligations to bondholders or impair the rights of these bondholders.

A reduction in revenue stability combined with increased cost and potential litigation risk could negatively impact DC Water's credit profile, thereby increasing our borrowing cost.

Those costs would ultimately be borne by district ratepayers.

DC Water's approach to collections are designed to avoid service interruptions whenever possible.

We've come before you at performance oversight hearings and other things to talk through all of the steps that we take.

So we do want to reemphasize that we prioritize early outreach, clear communications, and as we have been doing most recently, communications in multiple languages to the tenants impacted, and flexible payment arrangements tailored to customer circumstances.

Within that framework, disconnection authority, which is a last effort for us, serves as an important component, unlike no other utility in the nation, of an overall engagement strategy.

It is not the starting point, but rather it is a mechanism that helps prompt resolution when prior efforts have not resulted in customer response.

And we want to note, as you asked us to several months ago, actually probably a year ago, the notice provisions and things that we're doing within our multifamily buildings has resulted in reducing some of those arrears that we have.

So we we want to just continue to stress that we are partnership as we try to stress the challenges that we have before us.

Restricting this authority, however, does not eliminate nonpayment.

Instead, it allows unpaid balances to accumulate over time and ultimately shifts those costs to other customers.

Similarly, our lien authority is not a punitive measure.

Rather, it is a mechanism that allows for a measured and patient approach to collections.

It's important to know that a lien does not immediately result in a sale.

Without it, however, DC Water would have limited ability to secure outstanding debt over time, which would reduce flexibility and increase reliance on more immediate enforcement actions.

Within the context of this bill, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the robust customer assistance programs that we've have in the country.

They're highlighted a lot by our customer advocates notably, and we've done a lot to increase those over the years based upon the needs of district residents.

These programs are independently funded through a combination of DC Water resources, district support, federal funding, and we're proud of Splash, which is a voluntary contribution support.

They are designed to provide targeted assistance while maintaining financial stability and the independence that we need.

The proposed legislation differs fundamentally with those programs in that its costs would be borne directly by districts, DC Waters general revenues and ultimately by ratepayers, rather through independently funded assistance mechanisms.

In addition, mandating specific programs, such as the amnesty one listed in the bill removes our board of directors' ability to evaluate financial conditions and deploy these tools responsibly.

DC Waters board of directors are charged with balancing affordability, operational needs, and the long-term financial success of the authority.

That flexibility has been critical to the success of our customer assistance programs and to the authority in general over the years.

Turning to last, our legal considerations.

DC Water is required under its governing bond documents to fix, charge, and collect rates sufficient to cover operating expenses and debt service obligations.

If revenues fall short, DC Water is obligated to increase rates to meet those requirements.

The combination of extended service without payment, delayed lien enforcement, and reduced collections could be construed as impairing DC Water's ability to meet these obligations.

And as such, potentially exposing the district to bondholder litigation and to challenges in the validity of this legislation.

If revenue losses resulting from the bill require increase rates on paying customers, those increases could be subject to legal challenge as an improper redistribution of these costs.

In closing, DC Water shares the committee's goal of protecting district residents in a bill collection process that ultimately begins with the housing provider and ensuring continued access to essential services.

We have demonstrated that commitment through our actions, particularly as of late, as I've noted, when we have collectively partnered on addressing notably the multifamily challenges in our arrears and how we manage that and how we communicate that to protect tenants.

However, protecting consumers requires both compassion and practical tools.

Policies that remove tools, these tools risk creating unintended consequences that may increase costs, reduce system stability, and ultimately impact the very residents we are trying to protect.

We remain committed to working with the committee to identify a path forward that strengthens customer protections while preserving the financial integrity of the system.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

My colleagues and I, again, Loyal Oyemi, who is our acting chief financial officer and Kelly Fisher, our Associate General Counsel, are happy to answer any questions that you, and now I know we're joined by Councilmember Lewis George or others that may join us may have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

I was going to note we've been joined by Council Mr.

Lewis George who is here.

And so we'll do uh eight minute rounds for for questions here.

Um let me thank you for your comment to the very top uh and my commitments to continue to work in collaboration with you as well on trying to find a bill that uh moves forward to both protect our residents and strikes the balance that we have to.

You know, one of the things that is clear from my conversations with yourself and colleagues at DC Water, the sheer amount of arrearages is significant and it has an impact on DC Water.

I think that the we noted this in our oversight hearing.

Um current arrears are around $32.8 million cumulatively.

Previously it was around $35 million.

That's trending in the right direction, but at that pace it would take us another 30 years to go through that.

So what do you what do you account for some of the um the improvement?

And by improvement I mean being able to lower the amount of arrearages that DC Water has to carry.

That is a perfect question to start off with because I think it highlights the collaboration that we have done in partnership.

We do understand that protecting the residents of the District of Columbia in relation to the essential services we provide is is not you know something to be done in a silo.

And as we have, you know, listened to the feedback we've heard, you know, from some council members who said, how do we get here?

We need to be addressing disconnections sooner and not letting you know the arrears grow, while others have said, like yourself, let's make sure we can ensure that the tenants have awareness.

So I do think the one effort and tool that really has worked is the postings on the doors.

That effort has ensured that the tenants have an ability to understand that there are some challenges going on.

We had one instance just this week where the posting of the notice, we were not planning to disconnect, you know, spurred a payment of you know almost $90,000 that we had been going through all of the efforts over years at that point to try to address.

So working in partnership, this measure does require us to, you know, I'd love to call it a task force or something else with the Department of Buildings, you know, HCMA, all of the offices of tenant advocate OPC, of course, Children's Law Center, and others, the attorney general's office, to continue to work in partnership.

And I do think our by sharing that information ahead of time, as we've been doing to all of the impacted council member offices and those impacted agencies, I think it has helped to put some spotlight on what we know is a major issue.

Okay.

When you look at the the trends that we have, where do we where do we believe that our disconnections, based on the data we have?

Where are our rearages and our disconnection notices concentrated in?

What I mean by that is kind of twofold.

One is both geographically, and then the other part of this question is what type of housing do you see it concentrated in?

That is a great question.

Um one of the things we have been doing is trying to look at the information group by wards.

And I know that was a question that council member Parker asked during the performance oversight hearing, notably because we don't want to have a misnomer that these are east of the river or west of the river, or to suggest that this is not a citywide issue.

And I do want to highlight that while Wart 7 is our greatest impact, um, and you will recall that when we started to address these challenges post-COVID, so to speak, we focused on the smaller unit buildings, the four to six, and then it grew.

So when you think of the larger buildings, you also have to think about where they're concentrated in those wards.

So it is a mix, and I don't want you know anyone to take away today that this is an east of the river issue.

It is not.

It is one that goes, you know, across all eight wards, and certainly it does range in size of the multifamily providers.

But right now, um ward seven is our highest arrears.

Okay.

And for multifamily, I'm sorry, let me clarify.

And and that's in multifamily.

Correct.

Okay.

Um then I wanted to ask as well, and uh you or your team might have heard some of the conversation we had on a previous panel with the public.

How many of our DC water rate payers?

And I could say tenants, but I'm gonna kind of say accounts, um, are in their own names versus uh how do we how do we phrase it?

Um versus being the name of an LLC or being uh in a different name, a corporation structure.

That we will have to come back.

That was a great question that was raised.

Um one of the things kind of historically that we've been looking at is really trying to understand, you know, why haven't we had individual customer accounts?

Of course, it's you know tied back to the construction codes and all of those things, but uh as an aside from that, it's always been attached to the property owner.

So when you think about buildings, it's whoever is owning or managing that building.

And in some instances, you know, those are LLCs.

So we will take a look um at that information.

It was a good you know, notation to have uh what as we heard earlier in the testimony.

Right, because I think the question is is if it's if we are trying to also think about ways in which we are providing utility assistance to the person, having something in the name of a natural person versus a random LLC incorporated in Delaware, the challenge of being able to link that assistance can be harder.

So, how do we do that now?

I mean, so currently we've you know, we I've have worked with DC Water, we've created some really good um you know consumer benefit type of protections that exist, um, some type of utility assistance programs.

How does that work currently with an account holder who the account may be in their personal name?

Or it could be uh not, and it's in a an LLC structure.

Right.

We, from a multifamily perspective, and you know, for the record, certainly we did uh, and we were one of only, I love keep searching for other water utilities who tried to implement a multifamily assistance program during COVID.

We didn't have a lot of success with that.

There were some implementation challenges, of course.

We um have partnered with our housing providers to really understand what some of those aspects were.

But our customer assistance programs really are targeted to our residential customers.

So it is hard to kind of delineate your question from a perspective of how do we get to protecting tenants inside a building that is a single account holder.

Um we always are open to ideas and suggestions and certainly want to continue to look for programs that could benefit tenants in the multifamily, but right now our traditional customer assistance programs have been targeted to uh individual residential customer accounts, and then of course, with our CREAC, which we thank you for, you know, that nonprofit relief is for those organizations.

Yeah.

I and that's why we're trying to come up with different legislative ideas, it's why we're trying to work on this, because I um we can get into a much longer conversation around uh master meters and submeters, but if we are seeing the majority of your rearages concentrated in one area, concentrated in multifamily buildings, yet that building may be in the name of a an LLC or something else that is not a natural person, it makes our customer assistance programs that much harder to be able to get to the person it is that we're trying to help.

Um and so I think that we part of what I see these these bills, and there's you know a variety of them that we're talking through today.

Um I think that they really are uh there's a common thread through them is trying to figure out how do we get to that person in a multi-unit building who is struggling um to make ends meet and if they are essentially unable to access some of our different utility assistance programs, we've got to figure out how do we do a better job of connecting them.

And that's what I think the spirit of the bills are.

The mechanics are part of what we work out.

It's part of what we have to work out with you and and many others, but that's what we're really trying to go at.

If I could just add one, you know, aspect for the discussion.

Um, I do think we must work together to identify that.

When we start to think about, we have no idea of the sheer magnitude of the number of tenants in those buildings.

So the dilemma for us would be how to attach it.

Is it an income-based eligibility for customer assistance programs?

You know, those spark a wide range of conversations.

Again, looking at the the testimony of uh of the government entities following us, uh, there are challenges that we need to think through financially with the adoption of those programs.

You know, who's paying for that?

When you think about our DC water customer assistance programs, having the flexibility with a myriad of those resources does again approve by our board of directors, gives us the flexibility to attach those programs to where we're most in need.

And that's where I think you know, having a task force, having more of our housing providers in the conversation too to understand some of the conversations we've been having again in silos, we understand that they um housing providers also faced you know significant challenges post-COVID.

Um so all of us as a you know, a platform have engaged in some need to address the post-COVID challenges that we have.

So I would just encourage you and the committee to put us all together to work through those strategies.

All right.

I'm gonna kind of continue this thread in my next round, but let me turn to council for Millis George.

Uh thank you.

And uh uh thank you uh good afternoon, uh, Chair Allen, um, and thank you for holding the hearing today.

Um, I also wanted just to thank the many public witnesses who took the time to come forward and to speak on the range of legislations before us.

Um, as warfare council member, I hear from constituents every single day uh about the rising cost of utilities and the fear of cutoff.

Um, and at a moment when too many people are facing job loss, rents continue to climb, and the overall cost of living has surged, uh, these increases are simply not sustainable for families across the district.

And for many households, this is no longer just a strained, um, but it's a breaking point.

Um, and we have an obligation to respond with urgency and with focus.

Um, in difficult economic times like these, we need to be doing everything we can uh to provide relief, protect residents, and ensure that basic necessities remain accessible and affordable.

Uh, and that is what all of these legislations are trying to aim at today, and I look forward to working through uh uh through conversation with our government witnesses how we reach and attain the goal that I think we all agree on is the ultimate goal for DC families.

Um with that in mind, Ms.

Williams, uh, for DC Water, um, I just wanted to start out asking about how our water shutoff um, particularly around our multifamily buildings, sort of what has DC Water done historically to ensure that tenants in multifamily buildings are not unduly burdened when the non-payment is not their fault.

Um and can you walk me through that current process in receivership cases for multifamily properties?

Yes, and I will answer in part and then turn to my colleague.

Um, and certainly I would be remiss if I did not highlight um all of our legal partners.

Kelly Fisher is probably the most passionate person that you'll find in our authority on trying to work to prevent um and help tenants when they are in need, and certainly we worked with numerous offices when you all have reached out about those moments.

So I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge her before.

You know, really addressing your first question.

Um this was something new for us as an authority.

You know, we were not previously in the pattern of having to disconnect multifamily properties.

We certainly understood the the challenge, the transparency aspect, you know, ensuring that again, you know, we've we have just gosh, less than an hour, you know, 20 years ago established classes of which we um account.

So, you know, a commercial account, a residential account, um, that's even new to us.

So when you think about how we move the authority forward, um, this is something where the partnership about the the notices and postings.

We previously had, you know, our our typical practice, which is you know, the outbound calls, the letters, the engagement through that as our traditional approaches, and then when we recognize that was really in F for the challenges that you said, putting that notice together in partnership and working with all of the offices to make sure the language was appropriate, making sure that we had something translated.

We do know there are 13 accessible languages in the district.

That's important for residents to understand.

Now we'll tell you as soon as we post them a lot of times, the agencies or the entities are taking them down, but enough tenants have seen it to spark conversation.

Um, and that has helped because certainly what we have found is when that notice gets posted, those property managers or you know, housing providers are making payment arrangements with us.

They're not paying in totality, which is why to council member Allen's point, we're seeing the numbers you know come down incrementally, but it's a testament to the fact that our other efforts were not really as effective.

Yeah, and the threat of disconnection, I hate the carrot versus city dynamic here, but that has worked.

I think just historically some housing providers, as we've heard, are challenged with their financial situations and are saying, Well, if you're not going to disconnect me, I can put you in the list of things that I have to prioritize to pay.

Um that's unfair to tenants.

The access and knowledge of of tenants having to understand that complexity is something that I do think the spirit of these bills, you know, is seeking to do.

We're just trying to make sure you know we don't have a price tag on that transparency that then is borne by others.

But Kelly, if you want to speak to the receivership pieces, yeah.

Yes, um, good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Um, so I handle um file most of DC Water's receiverships.

Okay.

Um I have trained somebody else to help me with that.

So hopefully going forward, we'll be able to for file more of them.

Um with our receiverships, we try to keep it as a very streamlined process.

So our receiver, um, unlike other receivers, gets paid a monthly flat rate, so it's not hourly.

Um she does not take over management of the property, she focuses on payment of utility bills.

So she pays the DC water bill, electrical bill, gas bill, and then after all that's done, she looks at the remaining rents and a portion of that goes to the delinquent balance.

We try to keep it very streamlined because we by doing that, we can go in front of judge and chambers, which means we get hearings very quickly.

Yeah, um, and our hearings are very short.

And because it's low cost, judges are very quick to appoint a receiver.

When one needs to be appointed, the I I say all the time in DC water, the goal of receivership when I file it is not a receiver.

My goal is a payment plan.

And it's just another tool similar to disconnection that eventually I would say probably two-thirds of the petitions we file never go to a receiver, they're just payment plans.

Now, the the process isn't perfect.

We have some issues with subsidy funding and transferring the subsidy funds to the receiver, and there are also some issues, probably not surprising to uncorroute landlords not providing us information.

And I think in those two pieces, particularly I could see the council helping to make those two pieces more effective so we can be more productive with receivership so that I'm not going a year and I still haven't gotten any payment of a water bill.

Yeah.

What does and and I appreciate the work that you all join here?

I think this is effective and has been effective, and I'm really appreciative that you all have taken these steps.

Um, what does partnership with the residents look like during receivership?

I I feel like that's a big part of what this legislation is trying to get at.

And so I'm wondering do you partner with anyone to ensure that residents are aware that these kinds of demands are legitimate?

So our um say two things.

One, when our receiver is appointed, she walks the property and tries to make direct outreach to every single tenant.

It is also, and she posts the copy of the order.

Um, and I can tell you it is not uncommon for a tenant to reach out to me and have questions.

They particularly often have questions about who they pay because they want to make sure they're paying the right person.

Um the other thing that we do is keep an open communication with a group that I call our community partners.

Um, and some of that starts even before receivership, and I'm gonna give you a recent example.

We're going to be filing a receivership petition on a property next week that I got a phone call from Bread for the City about and OAG, who we provide a list of disconnection postings every week to, um, called me about, and they said, Hey, this is low income, low affordable housing subsidy property.

And I said, Well, that's great, because it's subsidy money.

I know there's money to pay the water bill.

Um, so between that discussion with Bread for the City, I've also identified other properties that they think are in a similar situation.

So now we can prioritize those for receivership because they're most likely to be successful.

That's right.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

One other point that I should have noted when council member Allen asked this question.

So I'm gonna slide it in because I think it's appropriate here.

One of the opportunities of the partnership that we have also realized is how often we don't have notification in our customer information system of a district property or a district subsidized property, or you know, one that's affordable housing.

So all of those additional pieces now, as a result of this partnership, we have a better relationship with the Department of Housing and Community Development to and DIMPET even to say when you all are considering you know putting uh district resources into these properties to rehabilitate or assist in some ways or take over in some ways, it's really critical that you let us know because what is happening is that that notice is then provided again because there are arrears or there are challenges, and there were buckets of monies, there's sometimes delays in those monies, you know, getting to the to the right department to be paid for us to be paid on time.

So just going through this, I'm just trying to ensure that you all have a clear picture of what we have realized that this breadth of housing challenges and one of the other areas is when we know their resources, as Kelly mentioned, that should be there or there, just haven't been paid on time, and thereby we haven't been paid.

All right.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um, what are the barriers that currently prevent tenants from accessing water billing information or payment assistance programs when the water account is held in the landlord's name?

Oh gosh.

I can probably take that.

Um I will say before I came to D when I first came to DC Water, I um questioned why we had steps that we required tenants to take before we gave them information, and I have since learned that um we have had landlords call us up very angry because we provided certain information.

Um of the things we did when we started multifamily disconnections is we created a declaration that a tenant can sign that basically says, I am a tenant, I am a lawful tenant, you can provide me information about the property.

That was a way to make things easier and give us a written document that protected us.

Um I know we have the tenant assistance or can't remember the exact thank you.

Um which I think is a great, great idea.

Obviously, I love it from a DC water perspective because it provides us some assurances on the liability portion that it part if somebody calls and we give them information, we don't have to worry about a landlord calling up after the fact and telling us that was a squatter, and they shouldn't have that information.

Okay.

Is there let's assume the bill passes?

Are there cases you think where a landlord could actively block tenants from being able to access information about the water bill?

I don't think so.

Not unless they have a court order.

I think you know, if they have a court order that says this person has no lawful right to be at the property, that I think changes the situation.

Right.

Absent that I can't add a whole there's a lot of the things going on if that's the same.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

So I can't really see that being an issue.

Okay.

Um in the written testimony, you stated if DC water needed to account for all multifamily households receiving their own bill, that would increase DC Water's billing systems 85 to 100 times.

What I think we're talking about is if you had to overnight submeter the whole city, essentially for a multifamily buildings, right?

Not exactly.

So, and and certainly I think that's you know, one complexity.

The other is just this sheer access.

So, as we are interpreting the the language in the bill to be, that individual would be able to go in and create an account.

So that ability means we have to then have the same documentation that Kelly noted or other information.

So there's that complexity of you know who's in you know apartment 101 today versus who's in 102 tomorrow, creating those systems again where the tenant has access only information versus being able to pay, because those um presently our customer information is is established by the accounts that we have, which have always been a you know a tie to one meter.

So being able to really have no breadth of understanding of how many tenants is that you know, back in my college days, it was five of us in a you know apartment.

Um so is that all five of those uh individuals having access to that customer information system.

So that's where we're noting the sheer magnitude that we believe based upon you know um information we have on the number of people who are tenants in the District of Columbia versus how many account holders we have, that that would require us to have a true CIS system overhaul.

Yeah, all right.

That helps clarify for me a little bit, and it also is I believe different than the intent, but it's helpful to understand where you're coming from.

So you're interpreting this not of um a who the household has an account.

You are interpreting this that every single person.

So if your example uh five 20 somethings or share in a house, there is now five separate accounts.

That's how I'm hearing you interpret that.

Absolutely.

So our interpretation is that if if we are to if those tenants elect, because the uh legislation does say that they could elect to have access to that account, then there's still one account.

We'd have to figure out how to again give whomever has legal access if they elect access to that account information.

That transparency would require us to have a dish.

So you're interpreting so there's four people who live in my house.

So you're interpreting that all four, you'd have to create a system that all four can account.

Well, in some instances, yes.

Because what would suggest, and I know you have children, I have children, certainly.

I would love to have my nine-year-old, you know, understand getting in and out of the shower a little bit quicker to reduce my water bill, but certainly, you know, that's another discussion for it to be.

If I finally bought a timer, you know, listen, I um I thought Alexa would work.

It doesn't work.

No, it works, the timer works.

It's counting down.

He hates it when it goes off, and so it works.

Um but all jokes aside, I think the point is you would have to think through the complexity of who would have a right to.

Don't discount that there's complexity.

I think you are interpreting this in such a broad way.

Okay.

That I don't believe that the intent is because how would you distinguish between my wife and two kids and I, as four people inside a home versus five 20-somethings that are in a house, but there's one bill for that household.

So we can certainly follow up after the hearing, but I think your interpretation is overly broad in terms of what is here, but that's why we have a hearing so that we can work that out.

Um what I don't want is a situation which we often find ourselves in where um any anything that uh legislation is seeking to do, I get a lovely fiscal impact statement that tells me they're gonna need to hire dozens of FTEs and all these other positions that the interpretation is often the most broad one to not want to have to be able to put something into place.

Um if there are absolute like, hey, we need clarity, like we need to know for sure, happy to work with you on that.

Um just to to add for the let's call it you know, research as we're looking at that.

We have talked to other water utilities to understand is anyone that we know of, we have you know awareness through our um various trade associations, et cetera, who have a customer information that's set up in that way.

We've yet to be able to find one who does for those same reasons.

It does present some challenges that I think we want to further discuss, which is you know, at one point we could hold that housing provider, or let's say the whoever is the account holder responsible.

You know, we hate to have them show up in in Kelly's court, but ultimately there is that step.

So, what happens in developing that system where you have a you know read-only perspective, or are you interpreting that the tenant is also eligible to pay, make a payment.

So we just need clarity again on how do we ultimately hold someone responsible in that sense.

My time is taken away.

So I will I hear you.

All right, on the subject of liens.

So you in your testimony you talked about how delayed lien enforcement would affect potentially bond ratings.

Yes.

And is what is the you also talk about the delay in you know extending when a shutoff can take place or when a lien gets placed.

It does not ever say there's never a pathway that you end up in that place.

It's trying to say what is the timeline, what is the fair process, what's the engagement process look like.

Help me understand that one.

I may have to defer on the bond rating timeline.

But I with liens, um I think it's important to remember the purpose of a lien is to secure our debt.

And without that secure debt, if the property is sold, if it goes into bankruptcy, um, we're now not going to um get paid back for that amount of debt.

I hear you on that.

Right.

But the legislation doesn't say you can't ever get to it.

And that's what I'm trying to make the connection.

If your argument to me is we believe this jeopardizes bond rating and our fiduciary responsibility to operate DC water in the right way, but it doesn't actually ever say you can't get to that point.

It just tries to create a different process.

So what I'll say is if we look at liens, if we can't put a lien on a property until $25,000, which is currently what's in the bill, I we did the math.

And for end of um February, you're about $32 million of delinquent charges.

16.4 million of dollars of that is unsecured debt because that is the amount of debt where each of those accounts owes less than $25,000.

That's what I'm trying to get at.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So it's not the dollar amount threshold is what you'd be concerned with.

Yes.

Because you can still get to a lien process, and that's if I'm trying to understand it, that's the piece where you say, okay, that now becomes a pathway that is less than 25,000 in a rear ages overall for that account, which means now I can't get to a lien, which that now means it trips up the potential for a bond rating.

That's what I'm trying.

That's the flow I'm trying to make sure I understand from your side where the pushback is.

But the other part of the when you expand the time until we can place the lien for a single family home, it's probably not an issue, right?

It's relatively small usage.

But you can talk about a huge apartment building, and that could be a lot of money.

So every month you could be talking about $50,000 going up, going up, going up.

Um now we can't lean.

I forget what the exact but that that's that's a concern.

Okay.

And I I agree with you, and that was something we looked at and struggled from a drafting perspective is a single family home arrearage amount is going to be different than a multifamily building.

Okay.

I know I'm well over time, so let me turn back to Councillor Lewis George.

Chair Allen, you asked and answered all the remaining questions I have for DC Water.

So I'm giving you back time and thanking uh DC water.

Well, thank you.

Well, I know we have a lot of other witnesses, so I'm just gonna ask maybe one or two four quick questions and then be able to move to others.

Um then let me finish my thought there because the dollar amount was very helpful.

So that thank you to help explain that one.

From a timing perspective, though, that's where again the legislation doesn't say you can't ever get to these spaces, it does extend the time and it lays out a different time rubric than you currently exist under.

So I struggle with how that timing, I realize you may not like a longer time frame, but it doesn't preclude you from getting to that destination.

And so having that say that impacts our bond rating, I I'm struggling with that through line.

You helped me you help me be able to understand the the dollar amount and I as acknowledge that's a distinction we have between different property types.

So if I can go back to the let's call it the COVID continuum.

The same process that we experienced during COVID, which was in most instances, we got here because some customers were electing to not make a payment.

So that same perspective of the continuum is exacerbated.

So I think where we're trying to walk you through is that if we have delays in being able to get to the processes we need to, which is trying to secure the debt, or most importantly, trying to prevent a disconnection, get that customer on a payment plan, and thereby ensure that we, as we have so many capital intensive processes or projects as you know about, that we can do that and pay back that bond in the manner which we prescribed, that's where we are saying that continuum of challenges exacerbates what we believe could be a challenge.

And we'll let you know you said it um perfectly on Lolo EME here.

Um what we're saying is that you know having a mandate that extends the timeline limits our ability to be able to meet our debt obligations, which is all tied to the um bond um um the bond covenant.

The bond covenant speaks specifically to a specific time frame?

No, it speaks to ability.

So what we've done is as part of a um, so you know we issue debt as an authority to be able to make the investments in the authority, and we have a commitment to our bondholders, right, based on the revenue projections that we will be able to disconnect at not that we want to disconnect, but within the timeline, having the ability to secure the debt based on the lien, right?

We're guaranteed a stream of revenue to be able to meet that payment.

So what we're saying is if you have an extended timeline from I believe um 30 days to as long as four months, and then part of the bill also talks about um waive in late fees as well as interest and probably outstanding balances, that's gonna reduce a revenue requirement in order for us to be able to meet our bond obligations.

Okay.

Did your bond rating go down during COVID?

I did not.

No, no, it did not go down during um COVID.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And I know that you're leaning in that way of saying if we were not, you know, being able to secure these things.

I will tell you that certainly under Mr.

Gaddis's leadership and Matt Brown, there were multiple levers that were pulled during that moment to ensure that where we were not receiving revenues in one area, we were able to still meet those obligations in others.

So I don't want you to immediately draw the one.

I know that all these lawyers up here, you know, our brains are going to where I suppose you may be going with that thought.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

It's not your first rodeo.

No, it's not.

All right, I appreciate it.

Um, I know because we have several more panels of other agencies I want to make sure we get to as well.

Um, again, I know uh you're always accessible and we can reach out.

We'll have definitely some follow-up questions.

Um, and I might have my colleagues ask some additional questions as well, so we'll make sure we follow up with you and your team.

Appreciate your testimony today on the legislation in front of us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so next we're going to move and let me call up Beth Mellon, the Senior Counsel for Housing Protection and Affordability with the Office of the Attorney General, as well as Emily Barth, the Director of Consumer and Tenant Response with the Office of the Attorney General.

And we already swore you in, so we took care of that.

If you have any other colleagues that you want to join, of course, feel free.

Um, but what I'll do is turn it over to you, and once you're situated, feel free to go ahead and start your testimony.

If you can push the buttons, the red light comes on.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairperson Allen and Councilmember Lewis George.

My name is Emily Barth.

I am an attorney at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, OAG, and I serve as the director of OAG's Consumer and Tenant Response Program, or CTR.

This program was previously known as OAG mediation and was renamed last month to emphasize OAG's growing role and responding to landlord tenant disputes.

CTR tries to resolve consumer and tenant complaints outside of court, including complaints about tenant fees and utility billing practices.

I have worked with this program since 2022 and have also served as an assistant attorney general in OAG's Office of Consumer Protection.

I am here with my colleague Beth Mellon, assistant deputy attorney general of OAG's public advocacy division and senior counsel for housing protection and affordability.

My testimony today focuses on B260595, the Transportation Rates and Utility Expenses Amendment Act of 2026, or the TRUE Act.

On behalf of OAG, I want to express our support for this bill and offer a recommendation for its implementation in the district.

An essential part of rent and utility affordability for district tenants is transparent billing practices.

This is especially essential when housing providers use ratio utility billing systems or rubs.

For too long, third-party utility billing practices, especially rubs, have not had specific legislative guardrails in the district.

Without targeted legislation to address the problem, rub spilling practices have consistently frustrated and will continue to frustrate district tenants.

The inability to meaningfully budget in the face of unpredictable utility bills and hidden tenant utility fees is especially frustrating for tenants as day-to-day costs increase.

Lack of upfront transparent billing practices are also a real risk for district tenants that are on fixed incomes or receive a housing subsidy and consequently face non-payment of rent cases when they cannot afford unexpected charges.

And we know eviction is costly to both tenants and landlords.

It is no secret that affordability challenges in the district, as well as across the country are top of mind for tenants and housing providers alike.

The TrueX protections make affordability more than a buzzword by creating clear requirements for housing providers and their contractors and clear expectations for tenants.

The True Act creates direct, easy to follow protections and clarifies the existing law about tenant fee billing practices.

CTR routinely receives tenant complaints about tenant billing issues, including complaints about hidden fees and rubs billing practices.

Since 2022, OAG has received approximately 780 complaints about tenant billing issues, approximately 300 of which are complaints about RUBS billing practices.

Since tenant fees and RUBS billing practices are such a problematic issue in DC, OAG has also issued consumer and business alerts about both.

The True Act provisions address the concerns that OAG hears from tenants, especially about RUBS billing practices.

Although housing providers often disclose that the property uses Rubs and a third-party contractor in the lease, these generalized non-specific disclosures are hard to understand and do not detail what the actual out of pocket costs will be for tenants from month to month.

Tenants routinely express that this type of billing is confusing because it is not key to direct tenant use of the utility, like in submetering or direct metering.

And even when OAG engages with housing providers and third-party utility providers through our complaint resolution process, the explanations and records shared do not always directly answer tenants' billing questions.

The True Act's requirements that housing providers make clear direct disclosures at the leasing application stage, including providing the last 12 months of bills by utility for review, are necessary protections to ensure that tenants understand what their out-of-pocket costs will be and whether they can actually afford to live at the property, especially as utility supply costs increase overall and tenants see their monthly utility bills go up.

This is especially true for residents who receive subsidies, such as housing choice voucher recipients who are generally responsible for utility costs, as well as residents on fixed incomes.

The True Act creates clear, consistent disclosure requirements for all housing providers, which in turn creates increased fairness and understanding for tenants before tenants are locked into a lease agreement.

The True Act also clarifies existing legal protections for tenants, namely that tenants cannot be charged additional fees, including administrative or service fees associated with third-party utility billing.

This is consistent with the plain language of DC Code 42350510 B21, part of the district's tenant screening protections, which bars housing providers from charging any fees to maintain a tenants unit in compliance with the existing provisions of the housing and property maintenance codes.

Because district housing regulations require landlords to provide and maintain access to utilities, it is unlawful, for example, for landlords to charge an additional mandatory fee associated with the provision of utilities.

Tenants want to understand the actual cost of living at a property at the time they apply.

When tenants see a rental price advertised, that should be the price they pay and they shouldn't have to worry about hidden mandatory fees that the landlord adds on later.

An OAG understands that housing providers also need to make sure their costs are covered.

The True Act achieves this balance by requiring transparent disclosure of utility billing practices at the earliest stage possible.

Rather, OAG recommends that council adopt enforcement language like the existing Maryland RUBS protections that have been in place for almost four years, which state that if a housing provider fails to comply with the tenant disclosure requirements, the utility charges or fees shall be unenforceable, period.

This creates a very real incentive for housing providers to provide the required transparent disclosures prior to a lease contract, as the bill intends, and ensures that tenants have all the information they need to understand whether they can afford to live at the property.

Allowing landlords an opportunity to correct a failure to provide required disclosures does not fix the problem for tenants who may be far along in the application or moving process.

Tenants who have already paid the leasing application fee and moving costs and have not received the benefit of the upfront utility and fee disclosures may end up in a unit that they cannot afford, a situation that is not good for the tenant or the housing provider.

Further, the existing provision that the rent shall not be increased does not prevent the tenant harm that the True Act seeks to address and could have unintended consequences for housing providers.

It is the variable utility fees that drive up the out-of-pocket costs and harm tenants.

Where these utility fees are not disclosed up front, the housing provider should not be allowed to charge them.

Any lack of upfront disclosures, especially harmful to housing choice voucher, other subsidy recipients that have limited market mobility, is they must follow what is often a time consuming process to get approved by the issuing agency and must receive issuing agency approval to try to move or get out of a lease agreement.

At a minimum, district tenants should be afforded the same protections as tenants that live miles from the district.

And we know housing providers can comply as many of the same housing providers operating in Maryland and have complied with the Maryland disclosure requirements since June of 2022.

And some OAG supports the increased transparency and accessibility for utility and tenant fee building practices that the TRUE Act lays out.

Neither tenants or housing providers want to end up in court, which is an expensive and time consuming process, and a court ordered eviction has long-lasting negative impacts on tenants and their families.

It is also burdensome for housing providers to expend resources to unexpectedly fill vacant units.

The TRUE Act protects both tenants and housing providers.

By increasing rental fee and utility billing transparency on the front end, as early as the initial tenant application stage, council is saving money and time for tenants and housing providers alike, as well as keeping the court system free of non-payment of rent cases or non-payment cases that can be prevented in the first place.

OAG supports these changes along with the related protections in Bill 260126, the Fair Housing Practices Amendment Act of 2025.

We welcome your questions about the TRUE Act, as well as questions related to the other bills under consideration today.

Thank you very much.

All right, you mentioned I think 780 complaints received by OAG and almost all about RUBS billing practice.

So should I should I take that to mean that is there a correlation between properties that are the target for enforcement activities by OAG on and whether they use Rubs?

Like help me know when you talk about the complaints, how much how strong is that correlation?

When I talk about complaints, I'm talking about complaints that we receive to our consumer and tenant response program.

I think that they are indicative of the broader issue in the district, and we try to resolve them through our consumer intent tenant resolution, complaint resolution process outside of court.

Okay.

In other words, is the formula different based on different housing providers or they all is the same thing?

No, it can be different methodologies.

I think the issue now is that there's not clear requirements about what methodology may be used, but the more common, I think, ways to calculate it are based on the size of the unit, like the square footage, the number of rooms, the number of tenants residing in each unit, and sometimes special amenities that may be featured in a unit.

Okay.

Is there a national or regional model of how to create a more fair Rubs calculation?

I think that there are jurisdictions that have adopted red Rubs legislation.

I think Maryland state is one of them.

They enacted Rubs legislation in 2022.

Montgomery County has had even more specific RUBS legislation specifically for water for over 20 years.

I don't remember the exact date.

And so there are certainly models to look for that have worked and continue to work.

Is there one magic method?

Probably not.

Okay.

Is there is there a formula or formula components that the OAG recommends?

I mean, you mentioned a couple of things like, you know, uh square footage, number of tenants, special features.

Is that is there kind of a now that you've had a lot of experience with it, is there a model that you recommend for us, not necessarily specific formula, but the type of features we should consider.

I think you should focus on the features that the TRACT emphasizes, which is clear, specific disclosures.

We don't we our goal is not to micromanage, like there is no magic method, but I think it the disclosures must be clear in plain language that's easy to understand for all tenants, and that is uniformly applied to across the building.

Okay.

Does the OAG ever require the implementation of or a specific definition of how to calculate rubs as part of a settlement agreement?

Um, Chairman Allen, I can say um no is the short answer.

In our housing conditions cases, I will tell you it's pretty rare for us to encounter properties that are using Rubs.

Um I could only speculate about why that is, but we there, of course, are just focused on what the conditions are with respect to utilities.

If there are utility bills that are unpaid, we would want those paid as part of a housing condition settlement.

If there are components of the utility system that are not working, that would really be our focus.

Um I think from a consumer protection perspective, if we had a case involved RUBs, frankly, we would be focused on disclosures and the kinds of things in this bill.

So making sure under the Consumer Protection Procedures Act that those items are cleared to tenants.

Okay.

Is there ever, I mean, part of what we're doing, search creating these ratios to kind of get around the fact that we don't have submetering in many cases.

Is there ever been a condition of a settlement that a building or property owner installs and does submetering?

Not that we are aware of.

Okay.

And increase that many property owners may not have expected or anticipated or planned for.

Do you think True helps the True Act would help build in adequate protections for unanticipated increase in utility costs?

So let's say I'm a property owner and I'm giving you a sheet at the beginning of a lease.

Um I'm giving you what I believe the costs to be or what the costs are for that upcoming year.

If there's a spike in energy costs mid-year, is there do you feel that this protects against that or provides for a property owner who may have to now figure out to absorb a spike in energy costs, um, how best to be able to allocate those costs to the users?

It provides accurate historical data for that property by utility, which is valuable information that tenants don't currently have and can make a more informed decision, right, about whether their budget fits into the budget that they would need to remain in this unit.

Um, just using the recent um cold snap we had um in January, right?

It doesn't anticipate you know increased utility costs for those sorts of issues.

Um, but it does provide then clear disclosures on how a bill is allocated amongst tenants.

I think part of the frustration that we hear from tenants is there's a lack of trust that housing providers are allocating the bills correctly because the specific methodology is not disclosed in plain language that tenants understand.

I think we've seen this come up at properties across the district.

So it doesn't um it's on a QRL, right?

Just like a homeowner, you rely on historical data, but if the supply costs go up, your costs go up.

Same is true with tenants.

Got it.

So it's not perfect, but it's more informed.

Yes.

Okay.

Um in your testimony, you mentioned the Maryland law that defines and limits how utility charges can be assessed under RUBs, including rendering charges unenforceable if they are not compliant with the law's disclosure requirements.

Are there any legal concerns around who would be responsible for those charges if they were not lawfully assessed by the housing provider?

Um I think we'll hear your testimony in a uh in a little bit that expresses some concerns about how electric and gas utility would be able to collect those charges if they are not paid at all.

I mean, that's a good question.

I mean, I think the Maryland law, when it says shall not be enforced, um, contemplates that those costs would then be passed on to the housing provider.

And so and I can make a comparison to rent control if that's helpful.

So if a landlord does not disclose their exempt status, they're not considered exempt, for example, they can't charge the higher rent.

Um, that might harm the housing provider.

The point of that, of course, is to incentivize the housing provider on the front end to make all of these required disclosures.

I view this bill as very similar to the kinds of disclosures that are required for rent control.

Or if you don't give proper notice of a rent control increase as a landlord, you can't enforce it and you may have to wait to be able to then increase the rent.

And so it's, I understand the concern.

Um, I think what we are doing is really trying to provide a system where those incentives are in place.

And so in the rent control system, just broadly speaking, larger housing providers who you know have buildings and have been in that system for years, they have their way of making sure that they give the right notices, they give the right disclosures, they keep their status up.

And it's the same concept, I think here.

There's not an effective cure for tenants on the back end if the disclosures aren't made.

Like a provision that would say a tenant could then break their lease without financial penalty is you know an easier solution on paper than in practice, right?

Breaking a lease requires a lot of effort.

Um moving costs are very expensive, you have to then go through the application process again.

And it's even more challenging as we talked about in our testimony for housing choice voucher uh recipients or other subsidy recipients who are dependent on issuing agency approval.

Okay.

And then last quick question, I'm gonna turn to Councillor Louis George.

In terms of that sharing the historical data in practice, do you view the housing provider as needing to update this every month?

So, what is saying the previous 12 months is from an implementation standpoint is the expectation you think is drafted that the housing provider on the first of the month, we'll use an example, has to do the 12 look back and the next month they have to update for the next 12 month look back.

And for the next month, is that how you think the bill's drafted and the right approach?

I I do think that's the way the bill is drafted.

I think it's the right approach because the most current historical data will be the most relevant if it allows housing providers to depend on data like after, right, or before supply or rate um increase happened, then it's not as powerful or useful to tenants.

Okay, that's helpful.

Counselor Lewis George, let me turn to you.

Uh thank you.

Um first I want to start by thanking you all for all you do to protect DC residents from unfair practices in our housing market.

Um, I do have some questions based on the testimony provided about this work and sort of how you see the legislation proposed impacting it.

Um I'm similarly concerned with um the lack of transparency in utility bill.

Uh and I'm appreciated your testimony regarding the need for clear protections in how tenants are charged.

I'm wondering if you could speak specifically to the ratio utility billing system proposed in the true act and how you expect this will directly respond to the concerns you all have raised, and how does this differ from rubs that you currently see tenants struggling with now?

I I think it's the same practice.

I think it's the rubs that we see now, but better regulated and with clear requirements of housing providers that then tenants can depend on.

And I think that uh requiring that these disclosures are made prior to the lease application is also extremely helpful.

It's important that these are made at the earliest uh possible time because just the cost of applying for a lease or applying to lease a property, right?

The $53 adds up quickly.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, um it's the same practice, it's just with the guardrails that haven't been in place.

Yeah.

Um I agree.

And how can how can rubs be implemented in a way that is fair and responsive to spiking utility rates?

So for instance, as rates increase, families are trying to decrease their usage to cut down on their bills, but if rubs uses a calculation that is based anticipated based on anticipated usage on square footage and that actual usage, that could be regressive in nature.

What would be a more equitable formula?

I mean, I think that's always going to be part of the challenge with rubs.

I mean, if housing providers, some utilities cannot be easily directly metered or submetered.

It would be very cost prohibitive, right?

To submeter water for every unit, so that tenants could then rely on their actual use.

I think that the True Act protects tenants even from rising utility rate costs or rising costs in general, because it gives them more information just to determine whether that unit is within their budget as a whole or whether they want to seek out a property that doesn't use rubs billings.

Right now, the lease disclosures that we're seeing are so generalized that some folks just don't understand what it means.

And having clear consistent requirements for all housing providers in the district, I think is a step in the right direction to making sure that tenants can stay and remain and thrive at a unit and not burden themselves.

Yeah.

I I know your testimony focused on the true act, but I am curious your perspective on the DC water billing and disconnection modernization amendment act.

Does your does your office get contacted by tenants dealing with water shut-ups shot-offs that are the fault of their landlord's nonpayment?

Yes.

We receive calls from tenants, OAGs, our consumer and tenant response hotline is listed on the disconnection notices that DC Water posts at the property.

That was the result of a partnership, you know, our working relationship with DC Water to make that happen.

We also receive the lists that DC Water referred to in their testimony weekly about properties that are facing shutoff or have received a disconnection notice.

And how is how does OAG respond to these issues and for tenants we reach out?

Well, quickly, uh, once we receive the when we hear from a tenant, uh, we would retreat it as a priority matter within our consumer and tenant response team.

And we do that with all utility disconnections or like loss of heat or air conditioning.

And so we try to identify the beneficial owner, and then we would try to reach out by letter the same day, um, depending on when the disconnection's happening.

When we receive the list from DC Water, uh, the disconnection we usually receive them close around the 30-day window, and so there's some time to work, but we send out the letters the same week that we receive the list from DC Water, as long as we can identify who the beneficial owner is from the addresses we receive.

Okay.

And so overall, do you do you see this legislation as potentially helping reduce instances of tenancying their water shutoff due to a landlord's nonpayment?

No.

I think that's hard for our office to say it's a little outside our lane, council member.

Um the work that we have done, we hope are helping to contribute the steps we've taken, including working with DC Water on the notice, um, including responding to the disconnection list.

We hope that that is helping bring that number down.

So I know we um Chairman Allen spoke earlier about the kind of two million dollar um reduction in the balance, and I think that's what I can say about that is we are trying to do what we can do to contribute to bringing that balance down.

Understood.

And one more in your lane outside your lane.

Um we've seen PEPCO at the center of a lot of public discussion recently for increases in their electric bills.

Um, and since your office is a vital resource for residents who have questions about utility billing practices, I'm wondering if you all can speak to whether calls to your office have increased over the past several months as rates of spite.

Um, and what is your advice uh as or what kind of guidance should be given right now as customers are sort of waiting to see what happens as a result of uh the current case uh law that uh decision that just came down recently.

Yeah, so what I can say about that, um, there was, as you may be aware, there was appeal to the DC Court of Appeals, and the case was sent back to the public service commission.

We had not been involved in the appeal, but we had worked with AOBA, the Office of People's Counsel on that case and challenging the rates, and we will certainly be involved in the hearing that we expect is going to happen on remand at the public service commission.

And that is part of broader work we do in front of the public service commission on rate making cases and other cases.

We're also involved in a utility discount program working group to get the word out.

Um, and I can tell you that for our office and attorney general Schwab, affordability, housing affordability, utility affordability, these are top priorities.

It's part of why we created the housing initiative that I help lead.

Um, and so we very much are looking at that work and anything else we can do more consumer alerts, for example, on utility discount programs.

Um, and I do think the council making that process for residents, low-income residents easier to uh qualify for all of those programs, obviously, is a helpful step in that direction as well.

Great, awesome.

All right, uh, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, a couple more quick questions, and then we'll move to our next panel.

Um, so Bill 26-443 tries to build on the existing emergency to require that DC Water send information on disconnections and a rearages to OAG among other district agencies.

Is there any additional or more granular information you think that would help the OAG in being responsive to or prevent service disconnections?

Or is the information that you're getting the right information?

I think the information provided for is helpful.

And the information we're getting right now, as we spoke to, we act on and you know, hopefully it results.

And I I mean I think um Ms.

Barth didn't say this, and I'll just um shout her out for a minute if that's okay, that um she engages then with landlords.

Landlords respond to the letters.

They may tell us we're working on a payment plan with DC Water.

We follow up and try to verify that.

Um so I think DC Water and OAG and OPC and OTA and all these and that legal service providers all kind of attacking this problem from multiple angles, is part of why we're starting to see that slow progress that we hope will grow over time.

Okay.

Um the legislation also looks to make some adjustments to the receivership process.

Has OAG, or how often has OAG petition for receivership on behalf of tenants?

So I want to separate here utility receiverships and tenant receivership, um, meaning the tenant receivership act.

So utility receiverships, our office is not involved in directly.

I will say there are times when a property has a utility receivership and we are either investigating or in litigation with that same property for housing conditions.

Um when that happens, it's usually because the owner, there's a broader pattern of neglect, deferred maintenance, not paying utility bills.

It's all kind of going hand in hand.

Um and so there, I think coordination is just key.

And so, for example, when the cases are in court and we become aware of that, we might try to consolidate two cases or three cases.

So they're all in front of one judge.

That judge can handle the water bill issues, potentially electric bill issues or gas bill issues, and the conditions that we are raising and have a coordinated response.

Um if it's outside of court, we would try to take that same approach of just making sure whatever we are doing is not going to undermine the receivership, that we are all kind of working together and sharing information.

Um so that's utility receiverships.

Our tenant receivership act, um, we may have properties there that have also water bill arrearages or other types of utility arrearages, but as I think you know, the statutory standard there and kind of our involvement is a pretty gross uh pattern in practice of neglect at a property.

Um it's usually not that utilities are off all together.

We would treat that as an emergency and try to take care of it uh kind of in a more nimble way.

Um and so I hope that's responsive to the question that tenant receivership is kind of over here in a different process.

Utility receiverships were generally not directly involved in.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um and then last question I wanted to ask is an earlier public witness that we had to today.

We heard from a small residential housing provider who noted that allowing tenants to have service placed in their name could create scenarios where the tenants don't pay for the utility, in this case, uh it's like a water and sewer charge, um, which potentially would allow DC water to come after that housing provider through a lien process or even a tax sale.

Is do you when did you hear that testimony?

And do you have any concerns about what that would actually look like if it's placed into the tenant's name and then the property itself think it's placed into a lien when the landlord did not want it to be placed into the consumers into the customer's name.

So I think this is outside of OAG's area of expertise.

I can say from my personal experience, I mean, that's a situation where a landlord has the full panoply of eviction notice court process, and that process has its issues right now, as I know you're well aware, but that would be the way for the owner to try to deal with in any situation where the tenants are responsible for paying the utilities and is not, you have that remedy of being able to take them to court and potentially remove them.

Ideally, get them back into compliance with their lease so you don't have an issue.

And that is an issue I've certainly seen in my past life.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful.

All right, thank you.

Um I don't have any further questions at this point.

So uh thank you both very much.

Appreciate it, and we know we can follow up if we have additional questions.

All right, next then let's invite Richard Jackson, who's the director of the Department of Energy and Environment, and Emile Thompson, who's the chairman of the public service commission to come on up.

All right, and thank you both very much for being here.

I don't think you're gonna get cozy on one side of the table, so that's good.

Um, we already at our swearing in, so um I will just go ahead and let you take it away with your testimony.

So, Director Jackson, I think we'll do first, then Mr.

Thompson after that.

Yeah, sure.

All right.

Afternoon, sir.

She left, okay.

Uh so good morning, Councilmember Allen, member of the committee and staff.

Um, Richard A.

Jackson, Director of the Department of Energy and Environment, commonly referred to as DOEE.

I'm here today to present testimony on behalf of Mayor Muriel Bowser on three bills.

Bill 260243, the automatic enrollment for utility affordability program act of 2025, and Bill 260124, the Utility Disconnection Act of 2025.

And Bill 260602, the guiding renewable interconnection distribution, commonly called grid amendment act of 2026.

District residents have seen their utility bills raised a lot recently.

The average residents' PEPCO bill has gone up 26% in the past couple years, and gall spills have gone up by 13%.

Utility costs are rising for multiple reasons.

Inflation has been high over the past five years, and we've seen the impact of that cost pressure and utility rates.

However, in a time of high cost, we need to look for ways to make investments more efficiently.

Outside of DC, regional costs have risen sharply due to demand from data centers and regional transmission projects, and the cold winter has exasperated rating rising rates, pushing the bill utility bills up further.

While the proposed legislation could be helpful for helping vulnerable populations, we also need to ensure we can drive down the cost for everyone.

So I'll begin my I'll begin by discussing Bill B 260243, the automatic enrollment for utility affordabilities act of 2025.

This bill will require DOE to launch a system to automatically enroll eligible households into DOE's utility affordability program a year after the bill's efficient date, effective date.

Eligibility will be limited to household and enrollment and income eligible programs administered by the Department of Human Services and Department of Health Care Finance.

The legislation requires DHS and DHCF to provide information related to their enrolled households on DOE's requests for the purpose of automatic enrollment.

Additionally, the automatic enrollment system would need to meet certain criteria and perform specific functions.

We estimate automatic enrollment into utility discount programs, also known as UDP, could increase enrollment in PEPCO's discount program from 19,000 residents up to 50,000 residents.

However, the bill acknowledges it may not be possible to enroll all eligible households for such utility assistance programs due to funding limitations for those programs.

I must underscore the importance of considering the overall cost of the discount programs and the impact that they have on other ratepayers.

PEPCO's discount program is funded through surcharges on all ratepayers who are not enrolled in the program.

Increasing the number of residents receiving discounts through UDP means all other ratepayers will see their bills increase.

As we have seen, as we have all seen these past few months, utility bills are already high.

Average residential electricity costs rose 26% from 2024 to 2025.

Electricity bills are rejected to continue to rise.

Many district residents are struggling with high unpaid utility bills that accumulated during the disconnection moratorium established during the pandemic and also dealing with overall financial strain.

Additionally, federal funding for some assistant programs have been uncertain.

Expanding enrollment and discount programs is well intentioned, but we must acknowledge that it can add to the financial strains our residents are facing from rising utility bills.

Additionally, I want to raise several operational realities that will impact this legislation feasibility if it isn't enacted and funded.

These concerns are informed by our experience with the ministering UDP eligibility determinations, as well as our research and conversations about automatic enrollment.

First is a factual clarification.

DOE does not enroll households in the UDP.

DOE identifies eligible households, and then it is utilities' responsibility to enroll the household in their respective programs.

Second, the bill would potentially apply to all of DOE's utility affordability programs like LIHEAP and the weatherization assistance program, but LIHEAP and the weather assistance program face unique funding pressures, and we do not support them being included in any automatic enrollment program.

In recent years, DOE has used its full allocation of LAHEE funds before the end of the fiscal year, so there was not enough funding to provide assistance to all eligible applicants.

If it's being established anyway, the automatic enrollment process could also benefit residents by easing the burden of applying for other DOE programs like solar for all, the affordable housing retrofit accelerator, and the affordable housing electrification program.

It would be beneficial to have the flexibility to automatically identify eligible households for enrollment in these types of programs.

Third, as a reference earlier, the bill allows DOE to prioritize household enrollment based on income and energy burden if limited if funding is limited.

However, there may be limitations on enrolling all eligible households other than lack of funding.

For example, solar for all may not have enough available capacity for all eligible households to be enrolled.

DOE needs the flexibility to develop other criteria demonstrating a need for assistance beside income and energy burden while prioritizing automatic identification of eligible households.

Fourth, DOE views is work on automatic enrollment as one process that is a component of a larger system.

The term system emphasizes the scope of the work involved and associated costs across multiple entities beyond DOEE.

Some components of the system need to be implemented by other by those other entities.

The legislation should ensure that the executive has flexibility and implementation, including the determination on which agencies take on which responsibilities.

Additionally, the entity responsible for enrollment, for example, the utility, the utilities and UDP cases, should notify households of enrollment and associated benefits and allow people to opt out of UDP or other programs after enrollment.

Finally, I'm concerned about the bill's envisioned implementation timeline.

Giving funding straights and the time needed to get such a program up and running, DOE, for example, would need funding for software to run the automatic matching process used to determine household eligibility for automatic enrollment and would need funding for staff to carry out the agency's responsibility in the broader automatic enrollment system.

If enacted, the bill will require automatic enrollment to launch a year after the bill becomes effective, but a successful launch will require coordination across multiple agencies on the individual pieces that need to be in place.

In addition, there are federal dimensions that would require to be navigated.

I will now turn my attention to the Utility Disconnection Protection Act of 2025.

This legislation will prohibit utility providers from disconnecting gas and electric services for protected households for eight months out of the year.

DOE will be required to verify on an annual basis which households qualify as protected and communicate to this to utilities within 15 days after the verification.

Being disconnected from electric and gas utility, especially in the cold winter months or hot summers, it's a heroin experience.

We agree that it's critical to help vulnerable populations address high utility bills so they can keep the utilities on.

One of my agency's goals to help ease energy burdens for vulnerable residents.

DOE has a number of programs in place to improve utility affordability, and we are actively evaluating and developing other initiatives to reduce utility costs.

We are concerned that this bill will not provide a sustainable long-term solution for high utility bills and will exacerbate accumulated utility bills, which we often refer to as rearages, and increase administrative costs for the district government.

The legislation's definition of protected household is broad in scope and is defined as a household that includes a senior, a minor, someone within a disability, someone who was pregnant or 12 months post-partum, or someone who receives specific types of public assistance.

If DOE determines that a household met the definition of protected household under this legislation, the household will not have to pay to have their gas andor electric utilities on during the eight months or two-thirds of a year during which they would be protected from disconnection.

If households do not have to pay, they may not actually pay at all or even part of their monthly billing during this time and enrich it will build up.

This is something the executive has has seen happen in the housing market over the past several years, especially the affordable housing market.

During the time during the time of the COVID air disconnection more return was in effect, utility rares grew substantially, increased by almost 250% from February 2020 to February 2023.

During the four months of a year where disconnection would be would not be prohibited for protective households, those households, if they met income criteria, may turn to DOE's low-income housing energy assistance program for assistance with paying outstanding bills that are inflated due to the disconnection prohibition.

This would add even more pressure to LIHEAP as I stated earlier, would add more pressure, even more pressure to LIHEAP.

As I stated earlier in recent years, DOE has exhausted its full allocation of LIHEAP funds before the end of the fiscal year, so there was not enough funding to provide assistance to our eligible LIHEAP applicants.

Last year's LIHEAP funding was exhausted by March 2025, halfway through the fiscal year.

Additionally, this legislation would add significant administrative costs to a very tight budget environment.

The requirement for DOE to verify that households meet the definition of protected household would increase our agency's workload and cost.

While in theory may be possible to automate the verification of some criteria, it would be very difficult or even possible to automate the verification of others, including age, disability, and pregnancy.

Privacy laws restrict information about other agencies can share with DOE for purposes other than manual verification or manual verification as possible.

Additional staffing will be necessary to conduct those verifications.

Current staff are already at maximum capacity processing applications for the existing utility assistance programs administered by DOEE.

There are alternatives to the approach in the legislation that could mitigate the issues just described and still help vulnerable populations keep the electricity and our gas on with more affordable bills.

DOEE and OPC recently worked with Washington Gas to approve the utilities arreages management program, which included raising the maximum rare balance that can be forgiven after successful participation in the program from $3,000 to $4,000.

Additionally, a recent DOE study found that residential that found that residential customers of third-party suppliers paid on average 70% more for their supply of electricity than they would have paid on PEPCO's default standard offer service.