By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
Baltimore residents, especially Black residents, continue to struggle with rising utility costs.
In response to these concerns, the Baltimore City Council hosted an oversight hearing on Baltimore Gas and Electric’s (BGE) skyrocketing prices on March 12.
But, BGE executives did not attend the hearing, instead criticizing the meeting in remarks to reporters.
“Because this hearing is narrow, repetitive and reductive we chose not to participate,” said Nick Alexopulos, a BGE spokesperson. “It is political theater on the part of the city council president. It’s not going to help our customers, and it’s not going to further the conversation that Maryland needs to have about bringing energy costs under control.”
He said the council hearing was too narrowly focused on utility and did not take into account other major factors that impact energy costs such as regulators and regional energy operators.
Alexopulos explained that the causes of higher bills extend beyond the utility itself, pointing to factors such as natural gas market prices, regional energy supply issues and state-approved regulatory structures.
“What the danger here is that this often gets oversimplified and what the result of that is … customers get misled,” he said. “That’s the last thing anyone should be doing right now.”
The hearing proceeded without BGE, featuring testimony from advocates and questions and remarks from residents.
“One thing is clear, and that is that Baltimoreans are suffering,” said Council President Zeke Cohen. “The Baltimore City Council is going to continue to fight for our constituents.”
Customers are reporting hundreds of dollars in increases during peak energy-use seasons despite efforts to conserve energy, leaving them to make difficult choices between keeping a roof over their heads, putting food on the table, or staying warm.
According to Naadiya Hutchinson, an organizer with the Baltimore Public Power Campaign, Black residents across Baltimore City face higher levels of poverty and stagnant wages, making it nearly impossible to keep up with rapidly rising costs.
“We’ve done everything we are supposed to do,” said Tee Hardy, a Baltimore mother of six. “This month I received a one-month bill and the gas portion of it was $831.46. It’s not possible to use that much gas in a month; we don’t even cook that much.”
Hardy, 40, said she now had to make hard budgeting decisions to pay the bill on March 12 so her family’s service would not be cut.
“I had to cut into my son’s shoe budget,” she said.
“It’s getting tiresome,” Hardy added. “Everything that I was taught as a child that would make me a productive member of society has been used against me to put me in a hole, to keep me and my family in debt. My husband is disabled, and these things keep happening. It’s not just BGE, but this is where we can start.”
Another Baltimore resident described similar struggles despite following advice to conserve energy.
“Despite doing everything I can to conserve household energy, such as turning off lights and limiting heating to the point where my elderly father and I are freezing, my bill continues to rise beyond what I can afford,” said Frederique Dambreville, a North Baltimore resident. “My gas bill has increased from $104 a month to $500 a month.”
Dambreville said she took out a loan of more than $2,000 earlier this year to pay her utilities, pushing her further into debt.
“I am now in debt of almost $3,000,” she said. “Like many working families, I already balance mortgage, groceries, transportation, insurance and other basic necessities. Utility should not be a luxury. It should be a basic right, an essential, and it should not be fair for my elderly father to be freezing in his own house.”
“I really want BGE and the decision makers to recognize how those rising utility costs are affecting everything and everyone,” she added. “We can’t afford them anymore.”