Improving Electricity Affordability in the Clean Energy Transition
A webinar featuring industry experts discussing strategies to address issues of electricity affordability in the United States.
Event Details
Affordable electricity is a major issue in households across the country. According to a report by the US Energy Information Administration, roughly 27 percent of US households report struggling to pay their energy bills. Of these, 20 percent of households report forgoing food or medicine to pay energy costs, and 10 percent report leaving their homes at unhealthy temperatures to lower utility bills.
At the same time, utility companies are making significant investments to lower their carbon emissions. While this transition could lower inflation-adjusted rates in the long term, many regions may see increased electricity rates in the short term due to upgrading transmission and distribution lines, retiring old generation capacity, increasing costs of natural disasters, or myriad other cost drivers.
On Wednesday, June 26, Resources for the Future (RFF) hosted “Improving Electricity Affordability in the Clean Energy Transition,” the next event in our Exposure 2024 webinar series on environmental justice. Our expert panel will explore the steps regulators, legislators, utilities, and nonprofits can take to address electricity affordability.
The moderator of the panel, RFF's Director of Government Affairs Brad Harris, recently published a blog in Resources Magazine on the topic. Check out "A Guide to Improving Electricity Affordability" for further reading.
Speakers:
- Richard Berkley, New York Office of Consumer Services
- John Howat, National Consumer Law Center
- Cassandra Lovejoy, National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association
- Brad Harris, Resources for the Future (Moderator)
Event Video
About the Exposure 2024 Series
The Environmental Justice Movement has been a part of community conversations for decades and has finally become a focus of national policy. For many low-income neighborhoods, households of color, tribal communities, and other marginalized groups, environmental injustice compounds a legacy of social, economic, and political disenfranchisement.
In 2021–2022, Resources for the Future (RFF) and the Urban Institute hosted a series of webinars known as Exposure to bring academic, government, and community leaders together to assess environmental justice research across disciplines while exploring gaps in knowledge. In 2024, RFF is holding a second installment where we will take a deep dive into the equity and environmental justice impacts of federal climate policies, particularly in light of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and novel state policies that reflect Justice40 Initiative priorities.
