Justice First activists and community members demand a moratorium on heat shutoffs outside the D.C. Council building. Mia Johnsons testifies at the public hearing before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs. D.C. residents hold signs in a silent protest before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs. Click here to see media coverage of Justice First.

As a part of Justice First’s Winter Moratorium campaign, activists and community supporters intervened in a Jan. 23 public hearing hosted by the D.C. Council’s Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs to demand emergency legislation outlawing shutoffs of heat this winter.

Before the hearing, a rally initiated by Justice First gathered outside the Council building, where protesters held a large banner stating, “We Need Emergency Legislation: Outlaw Shutoffs of Heat!” The action was a spirited denouncement of Pepco, the monopoly electrical distributor in D.C., where electricity bills have doubled in five years. Chants of “Hey hey! Ho ho! Pepco has got to go!” and “Shut off Pepco, not our lights! Heat and light are a right!” filled the streets.

Justice First believes that heat and electricity are a right! During this economic crisis, no one should be living without heat in their homes. Yet, under current D.C. law, utility giants have the right to shut any customer off for inability to pay as long as temperatures stay above 32 degrees on the day of disconnection.

This means that, on a “warm” winter day, your heat could be shut off, and it will stay off regardless of how cold it gets until you can come up with the exorbitant sums demanded by the utility giants.

Click here to sign the letter demanding a winter moratorium on heat shutoffs. 

Once inside, Justice First activists and members held up signs promoting Justice First’s demands for a winter moratorium on heat shutoffs and an immediate 50 percent rollback of utility rates while taking their turns testifying before Councilmember Muriel Bowers. Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. arrived toward the end of the hearing.

Mia Johnson, a Pepco customer who recently turned to Justice First for help, was one of the D.C. residents who testified at the hearing. She stated that, despite always having paid her Pepco bills on time, Pepco charged her nearly $10,000 for unpaid electricity over a period of three years. During those years, Pepco had been “estimating” her bills instead of billing according to meter readings.

“I am a single working mother with a teenage daughter,” Ms. Johnson said. “Like any parent, I have dreams of my daughter going to college … but the reality is that this may not be possible if I am expected to hand over all my income and savings to Pepco.”

Another member of Justice First and health care worker, Ladon Boyd, attacked the Council for serving Pepco, not District residents:

“Pepco keeps raising their rates, but if my hourly wage isn’t increasing, how do you expect me to pay these rising bills? If I don’t have electricity, how am I supposed to wash my children’s clothes, cook for them, and keep my house safe? Despite what they did to me, you still allow them to threaten to disconnect me when I can’t pay everything Pepco wants.”

Justice First’s intervention was widely covered by national media outlets, including National Public Radio, Washington Post and Associated Press, as well as local television stations NBC, Fox and CBS and local newspapers.

A law that prohibits winter shutoffs is only the first step. We have the power to make heat and light a right! As Executive Director of Justice First Crystal Kim stated before the Committee:

“When the Constitution of the United States was adopted in 1787 and the Bill of Rights was added in 1789, it would not have been possible to guarantee as a right—a constitutional right—that every person in this country would have heat and electricity.

“But today, in 2010, at a time when the government is able to bail out the biggest banks and allow them to take the biggest bonuses, every human could have the right to heat their homes and provide light for their families.

“At a time when we know that these things are not luxuries, but a requirement and necessity, we at Justice First believe that heat and electricity are not a luxury but, in fact, should be encoded into law as a constitutional right.

“But we’re not asking for that right now. We’re asking for something much simpler. We’re asking for a piece of legislation that prevents these millionaires and billionaires who run and profit from Pepco and Washington Gas from turning off poor and working-class families’ heat at a time of great economic recession in the middle of winter when it’s so cold. That is why we are here today.”

Click here to sign the letter demanding a winter moratorium on heat shutoffs.