Well before COVID-19 hit, we know that Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) and low-income communities were already struggling under the burden of high energy bills. When hit by a utility bill just $50 higher than normal, households report cutting heating and cooling, rent and mortgage payments, food, medicine, childcare, and/or eldercare.

Our communities are being hit the hardest by this pandemic - we are dying and losing jobs at higher rates. Every day, families are having to make impossible decisions between keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads, and keeping the lights on and the water running.

We believe that our access to these basic services - services we need to stay at home and stay alive in this health crisis - should not be determined by our race, our income, our gender, our ability, our citizenship status, or the language we speak at home.

1. 1. Keep Washington families connected to power for the duration of the pandemic and through economic recovery.

2. Erase the utility debt of low-income households.

3. Require utilities to pay their fair share. Last year, Washington’s five investor-owned utilities - which includes Puget Sound Energy - paid their top executives a total of $51 million. Yet utilities would like their customers to pay for the costs incurred in this pandemic   in the form of higher rates. This needs to change!