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Keeping All The Lights On: A Roadmap To Affordable, Universal Electricity Service In The Clean Energy Transition, Gabriel Pacyniak
Keeping All The Lights On: A Roadmap To Affordable, Universal Electricity Service In The Clean Energy Transition, Gabriel Pacyniak
Faculty Scholarship
The COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing reckoning with structural racism, and an emerging focus on justice in the clean energy transition have combined to spotlight utility disconnections and the related issues of energy access, affordability, and security. Recent empirical scholarship has demonstrated that electricity disconnections of lower-income people are relatively common, disproportionately affect people of color, and cause significant harm. This Article describes how a number of U.S. states are fashioning an emerging policy model that makes significant progress toward truly affordable and accessible electricity service for all. It also describes how these state actions are consistent with U.S. utility law …
Greening The Old New Deal: Strengthening Rural Electric Cooperative Supports And Oversight To Combat Climate Change, Gabriel Pacyniak
Greening The Old New Deal: Strengthening Rural Electric Cooperative Supports And Oversight To Combat Climate Change, Gabriel Pacyniak
Faculty Scholarship
New Deal cooperatives succeeded in electrifying rural America when for-profit utilities would not. Today, however, rural electric cooperatives are lagging behind when it comes to meeting the challenge of climate change. Cooperatives have collectively been slower to embrace the shift to low-carbon electricity than for-profit and municipal utilities and have served as a drag on state and federal clean energy and climate policies. This is partially because of the structural differences between cooperatives and other utilities, but also because of a weak and under-determined federal and state regulatory structure. A few cooperatives in Colorado and New Mexico are seeking to …