Committing Ourselves to a Worthy Cause
By: David Sinclair
Council #7259
A specific commitment of our LULAC Council #7259 is to promote environmental protection and preparation for climate change. To this cause, members have participated in county and state advocacy issues. The particular issue of the role of electric power utilities in Florida is presently a primary focus. Being faithful to this cause, we are sending a legislative challenge to you: Come out with us and support the specific bill on the 2025 Florida Legislature’s calendar that deals with residential utility disconnections during extreme weather events. It is a bill which we hope will survive the vicissitudes, or change of circumstances, of the legislative process in the state capital.
Understanding how you can impact the success of this bill is timely. The moment for serious advocacy in Florida has arrived early in the year. The Legislature has begun meeting in Tallahassee, where our state representatives and state senators will decide how to vote, hopefully weighing their constituents’ interests in the process. Our LULAC council wants the public to understand the significance of matching its passions to real life opportunities to impact the process wherein future laws are created.
This is where you come in: Telling your elected officials what is important to you! Your insistence in communicating your values to them can make a great difference, especially when your own adversaries seem to already have the upper hand.
It is imperative that as voters we “step up to the plate” as early as possible in this legislative season, no matter what the legislative agenda you carry, personally. When your preferred issues are being considered for the first time in a legislative committee, any courageous effort on your part to contact your legislator is critical. Just telling that elected official to support, or in other cases to oppose, a certain bill being considered, will carry some weight. Don’t fear that during your contact with the legislator or her/his staff member you may be partially unable to explain the entire bill to the person who answers the phone, or responds to your text or email. Tell them your position on the bill in question, and they will record your opinion as favorable or unfavorable to that specific bill.
So, here is the exact name and number of the “residential utility disconnection” bill our LULAC council #7259 wants you to advocate for. At present, the bill’s fortune of moving forward seems to be dismal as it CLAWS its way through the legislative committees in Tallahassee, where legislators are mulling over whether to put this bill on their agenda, or not, to discuss its merits. Your state representative and state senator need to hear from you that you care to see them support the PAUSE Act (“Protect Access to Utility Service in Emergencies.”) In the Florida House of Representatives the bill is numbered HB419; in the Florida Senate the number is SB330. So what is the PAUSE Act, and why is it important to LULAC members?
This “residential utility disconnection” bill would protect residential utility customers in Florida who face service disconnection for non-payment from suffering a direct SHUTOFF of their electric service during extreme weather, public health events, and during states of emergency in Florida. When so many Floridians are already energy-burdened (spending more than 6% of their annual income on energy bills), the prospect of any utility disconnection for non-payment is very real. The elderly, pregnant mothers, and young children are particularly vulnerable in conditions of extreme weather.
Imagine the consequences of a utility disconnection on the health of these populations. This bill speaks specifically to the weather conditions when the “heat-index” (calculated using both outside temperature and humidity) is forecast to be 90 degrees F or higher, and/or when it is forecast to be below 32 degrees F.
For you as a voting resident of Florida, consider that this issue of “residential utility disconnection” touches many who you care for dearly. This PAUSE Act provides significant economic savings, improves disaster preparedness recovery, and decreases violent crimes, while protecting the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Just consider the difficulty it is to get justice on so many matters which face folks who are energy-burdened, and on top of this troublesome reality are facing utility disconnection for non-payment.
We see a solution to avoid the drastic consequences of residential utility disconnection during extreme weather events in Florida when the cause is non-payment of service. That one solution before us, now, is for the PAUSE Act to pass into Florida law! A FIRST step in the process of getting HB419 and SB330 moving along on the calendar of the assigned committees in the Florida Legislature is for YOU to first contact both your state representative and state senator. This contact can be through phone, text, and/or email. Tell them you want their support for the PAUSE Act and, then, give them the bill’s number. SECOND, it would be very wise to go ahead and contact the committee chair and, if possible, contact members of that committee considering the bill on their calendar.
The specific information you will need to find these legislators is publically available through the internet. Seek out on these web pages which committee is considering voting on moving this bill along, find the name and direct contact information for the significant legislator you need to influence the most, and any updates on the legislative process the bill is going through at the moment, The web pages are: www.flhouse.gov AND www.flsenate.gov.
As the LULAC member you are, and as a concerned Floridian who understands the difficulties created by the weight of an energy-burden, especially when living through climate change with its extremes, PLEASE act now!
IF this PAUSE Act were to “die” in the legislative committees it has been assigned to, we will CONTINUE our fight, and during the year we will double down our efforts by contacting those in legislative leadership in the next session, and drive media around the fact that up to mid-March, 2025, the PAUSE Act coalition generated over 1,000 emails to legislative committee chairs to put the PAUSE Act on their agenda this session!