Recording in progress.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm

Charles Allen, the Ward Six Council member and chair of the Council's Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

Today is Wednesday, September 30th, 2026, and we are meeting both in room 120 of the John A.

Wilson building as well as over the Zoom virtual platform.

The time is now one oh three PM, and I'm calling to order this additional meeting of the committee.

I'll note we have a quorum consisting of Counselor Zachary Parker, Janice Lewis George, and Christina Henderson, and myself.

Average energy costs in the district surged by nearly 70% between twenty seventeen to twenty twenty-five.

As of September 2024, for one quarter of low-income households in the DC metropolitan area, energy expenses already are accounting for sixteen percent of their income.

This is more than four times higher than the me median energy burden for customers in other jurisdictions.

We have programs to help working families, seniors, and low-income households save money on their monthly utility bills.

But we are reaching less than half of eligible households who should be enrolled.

So why do we have this disconnect?

For too long the district has made that senior on a fixed income or that working parent jump through hoop after hoop after hoop, repeatedly proving their own poverty in the few precious moments they have between a second and a third job or the child care they're trying to juggle.

It's got to be easier to help get the need, get the help that people need and they are already eligible for.

And today's action is going to help fix this.

Because if you're already enrolled in one of the critical programs of assistance, we know you're already eligible for every utility program that we've got.

So to this end, the committee print for Bill 26-243 instructs DOEE in consultation with the Public Service Commission, the Office of People's Council, Utilities, and Agency Contractors to implement a process for automatically identifying and enrolling district households into affordability programs for which they the eligible, excuse me, which they are eligible based on their current enrollment in another income qualified program.

The

print specifically requires that DOEE receive enrollment data for income qualified programs administered by the Department of Human Services, DC Health, and the Department of Healthcare Finance, including enrollment data for programs like SNAP, TANF, WIC, and Medicaid.

To protect sensitive data, the print requires DOEE implement a data sharing protocol that ensures the agency will not disclose personally identifying information except for the purpose of administering the automatic enrollment system.

So

when a household is enrolled into an affordability program through the automated process, the household will be notified of their enrollment, the date upon which the benefits or credits will begin accruing, and a procedure for withdrawing from the automatic enrollment process or relevant programs if they choose to do so.

With the automatic system in place, DOEE estimates that around 31,000 additional low or median income district residents would be enrolled in benefits, delivering critical aid to families at a time when basic utility services have become increasingly unaffordable.

I think this legislation is going to make a big and meaningful difference to families all across the district.

With that, I'm going to move our committee report and print, but first let me turn to see if there's any discussion from colleagues.

Counselor Lewis George.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairperson Allen and members of the Transportation and Environment Committee.

It is no secret that district residents are facing some of the fastest rising energy bills in the nation.

But those costs are not felt equally.

For families already struggling to pay rent and put food on the table, keeping the lights on can be a monthly crisis.

And when people are already juggling work, school, family, and the paperwork required to access public benefits, asking them to navigate yet another program is simply another barrier.

The numbers make clear how urgent this is.

In August alone, PEPCO issued 25,673 disconnection notices, a 218 percent increase in just one month.

And electricity shutoffs increase 22 percent between July and August, leaving 840 households without power.

We should not make people prove their hardship over and over again before they can get help.

The automatic enrollment for utility affordability programs act of 2025 is a common sense step.

If we know a resident is eligible for assistance, we should make it easier for them to receive it.

Addressing the district's broader energy affordability affordability crisis will require bigger structural changes to how we regulate utilities work, and I look forward to doing that with the remainder of this council term, but we do not have to wait to help lower income residents by removing barriers access relief.

We can make sure help reaches the people who need it most when they need it.

I look forward to voting in favor of this bill today and supporting it as it moves through the full council.

Thank

you.

Thank

you very much, Councilor Lewis George.

Any other discussion?

Council Mr.

Henderson?

Uh thank you, Councilmember Allen, and thank you for moving this legislation.

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions on the record.

So even though this legislation is dealing primarily with uh utility affordable programs, it does require coordination with several other agencies, including some in the health uh cluster, uh mainly Department of Healthcare Finance.

I was curious if you could just speak a little bit about what coordination, if any, we had with those agencies while we were putting this together.

Um I'd imagine that they probably will have to have some sort of MOU or data sharing agreement at some point in order to even implement this, but um I just wanted to ask about that.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Um both DOEE, our committee, and others have been in uh conversation with all those different agencies, um health, human services, healthcare finance, and then as you saw in the legislation, it also requires DOEE to implement a data sharing protocol that will protect personally identifying private information, but make sure that we're able to help connect people and get them automatically enrolled.

Great.

Um I also wanted to ask about the FIS because what a wow.

Uh every agency claims they need staff to implement.