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Access to Utility Service: 10.4.4.4.1 Description of the problem

Since the late 1990s, there has been an increasing trend toward video calls.354 In some instances, the correctional facility has a remote video-calling system, which allows the person in the free world to receive a video call from an incarcerated loved one from the comfort of their own home (or from anywhere else).

Access to Utility Service: 10.4.4.2.3 Passage of the Martha Wright-Reed Act

On January 5, 2023, President Biden signed into law the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022 (Martha Wright-Reed Act),321 a bipartisan bill that advocates for prison phone justice had long supported. Through the Martha Wright-Reed Act, Congress responded to the D.C. Circuit’s GTL v.

Access to Utility Service: 10.4.4.5 Tablets

Tablet computers have become increasingly popular in correctional facilities nationwide, and they have become a means for people who are incarcerated to send electronic messages, make phone or video calls, listen to music, read e-books, and more.376 Unfortunately, they have also become a means of delivering a captive market to profit-seeking companies that can, and often do, charge exorbitant fees.377 Many tablet programs charge users a per-minute fee to read e-books, send messages, or listen to

Access to Utility Service: 10.4.4.1 Background

In the free world, people communicate at little or no cost in a variety of ways, including emailing, video calling via platforms such as Zoom, and low-cost phone calling and texting options.

Access to Utility Service: 10.4.4.6.1 Overview

Over the years, private litigants, including families of incarcerated people and formerly incarcerated people, have challenged calling rates and other communications-related practices. Many of the cases challenging phone rates have not been successful,379 but there are some exceptions.

Access to Utility Service: 1.1.3 Organization of This Treatise

This treatise is organized into four topics: (1) getting and maintaining regulated utility service; (2) keeping utility bills affordable in private and subsidized housing; (3) issues specific to low-income telecommunications and water; and (4) special circumstances.

Fair Debt Collection: 16.8.1 State Laws Governing Specific Businesses

State law governing specific businesses may provide relief for abusive debt collection. For example, when a California funeral director transported a widow to a bank instead of the cemetery, and made a loud scene when tellers refused to cash her check, this was not only false imprisonment, but also a breach of the implied covenant to provide a dignified burial service.794 Collection of debts for most types of utility service is governed by specific state laws and regulations.795

Access to Utility Service: 1.2.2.2 Regulation

The electric power industry is overseen by independent federal and state regulatory commissions. At the wholesale level, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has jurisdiction.20 For retail sales to end-users, individual state public utility commissions (PUCs) determine policy.

Access to Utility Service: 14.2.1.3 Are RECs State Actors?

Whether a rural electric cooperative (REC) must comply with due process requirements when terminating service depends on whether it can be considered a state actor. It should be clear that an REC is a state actor if it terminates service on instructions from a state agency.17 In addition, several court decisions in other contexts support the view that RECs can be considered state actors more broadly.

Access to Utility Service: 14.2.1.1 Generally

The Due Process Clause applies only to state actors, so the first step in evaluating a due process claim related to a utility termination is whether the entity involved in the disconnection is a state actor.1 Since municipal utilities—i.e., cities, towns, or other local governmental units, or their agencies or departments, which sell utility services to retail customers—are governmental entities themselves, courts universally recognize that they are state actors and therefore subject to due process requirements.2

Access to Utility Service: 14.2.2.1 Generally

In order for due process protections to apply, the challenged acts of a state actor must “work a deprivation of interests enjoying the statute of ‘property’ within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.”35 A protected interest is created by state law or some other source that causes it to rise to the level of a legitimate claim of entitlement.36 The Due Process Clause comes into play when the state subjects a protected property interest to a more than de minimis interference.

Access to Utility Service: 3.2.3 Tenant Rights to Pay for a Building’s Utility Service

In circumstances where the landlord fails to pay for service, one strategy is for the tenant to pay the utility directly for the service. This raises several issues. First, in a large multi-unit building with one master meter for all the tenants, it may be difficult to get everyone together to make payments on the utility service. Another issue is whether the tenants must pay the landlord’s past arrearages to retain service or only the cost of the service going forward.

Access to Utility Service: 5.2.6 UCC Limits on Utilities’ Power to Demand Deposits or Increased Deposits

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) has been held to apply to the sale of utilities, in metered quantities, to end users.204 Two sections of the code may apply to a utility’s demand for a deposit, or an increase in an existing deposit, from a current customer: U.C.C. § 1-208, which limits the operation of insecurity clauses, and U.C.C. § 2-609, which limits a seller’s power to require “assurances” when it fears anticipatory breach.

Access to Utility Service: Listing of Provisions

TITLE 42. THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE

CHAPTER 94—LOW–INCOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE

SUBCHAPTER II—LOW–INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE

42 U.S.C. sec.

8621. Home energy grants

8622. Definitions

8623. State allotments

8624. Applications and requirements

8625. Nondiscrimination provisions

8626. Payments to States; fiscal year requirements respecting availability, etc.

Access to Utility Service: 42 U.S.C. § 8621. Home energy grants

(a) Authorization

The Secretary is authorized to make grants, in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter, to States to assist low-income households, particularly those with the lowest incomes, that pay a high proportion of household income for home energy, primarily in meeting their immediate home energy needs.

(b) Authorization of appropriations

Access to Utility Service: 42 U.S.C. § 8622. Definitions

As used in this subchapter:

(1) The term “emergency” means—

(A) a natural disaster;

(B) a significant home energy supply shortage or disruption;

(C) a significant increase in the cost of home energy, as determined by the Secretary;

Access to Utility Service: 42 U.S.C. § 8624. Applications and requirements

(a) Form; assurances; public hearings

(1) Each State desiring to receive an allotment for any fiscal year under this subchapter shall submit an application to the Secretary. Each such application shall be in such form as the Secretary shall require. Each such application shall contain assurances by the chief executive officer of the State that the State will meet the conditions enumerated in subsection (b) of this section.