Joline Price and Josie Pickens from Community Legal Services of Philadelphia give attendees an energy affordability lens with which they can reflect on the presentations that they've viewed (and the future conversations they'll have) around clean energy.
Joline Price
As a Supervising Attorney in the Energy Unit at Community Legal Services, Joline Price represents low-income Philadelphians struggling to access and afford gas, electric and water service. In addition to individual representation, she also does systemic advocacy and community education on utility access and affordability. Joline previously worked as a staff attorney at the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, focusing on bill affordability and access to water, gas and electric service across the Commonwealth. Ms. Price also worked as an attorney at the Pennsylvania Health Law Project focusing on access to publicly funded health insurance and medical services. For tweets about energy policy, anti-poverty work, and random musings, follow Joline at @jolinetweets1.
Josie Pickens
Josie B. H. Pickens is a Supervising Attorney and Co-Director of the Energy Unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia (CLS). She represents low-income residential utility consumers in disputes to maintain and afford utility service. Her practice includes systemic advocacy and litigation to reform energy and water affordability policy.
Joline and Josie, thank you so much for laying these issues out so clearly. You covered so much in 23 minutes, so I'm eager to re-watch and learn even more! I love the term "affordable just transition."
Near the end, Josie, you mention some of the impacts COVID-19 has had on this work, and you said that some things were still in motion. I've been trying to track all the local news articles about shutoff moratoriums, bill assistance and relief, and expanded programs, but I don't yet feel like I have a clear sense of where things stand. Could you say more about the current status of protections and assistance for customers, and what you're watching to make sure customers fair as well as possible during this time? Thank you so much.
Thanks for joining us for this closing keynote about the role of energy affordability in a clean energy transition. Would love to hear your thoughts and questions! Over the course of the conference, I'll post some links and information about the topic and the work that we do. Here is an article about how the racial justice dynamics of some of our work: https://www.penncapital-star.com/civil-rights-social-justice/this-puc-rule-on-utility-shutoffs-unfairly-impacts-black-and-brown-people-it-must-be-repealed-opinion/