The United States. A federal state utility collaboration. This is a little bit of a different topic for usc a, but one that we are very eager to have a conversation about and im hoping that this will be the first of a continuing conversation because the matters that were going to address this afternoon are taking out of the degree of urgency. Always been urgent what i think myself that urgency is growing so thank you for coming we have an excellent panel here today. For our discussion. We hope to have audience participation as well. Monitoring in todays session is our luck. Mark will provide the discussion and moderate the discussion in the need for Energy Assistance. He is an economist, and is an expert on local and Regional Energy and housingfinancing. He is consulted regularly for federal, state foundation and nonprofit agencies. Hes experience at testifying before congress and he is the executive director of the National Energy assistance Directors Association and the Energy Programs consortium and is the Founding Partner of project Energy Savers so again, thank you forcoming and ill turn it over to mark. Id like to thank the United StatesEnergy Association forhosting todays session. Its a very important topic, Energy Poverty in the United States is also a global issue. Id first like to thank Barry Worthington and staff and jessica for working with us to put this together. What is Energy Poverty . Simply put, its when we cant afford to pay their home energy bill, and a difficult daily choices paying for food, medicine and other essential in order to pay for theirenergy bill. Before i talk probably about Energy Poverty though, id like to introduce todays panelist. These are experts in the field of work across areas from associations, Corporate Association as well as the government. Before that i like to say just a word about the National Energy assistance Directors Association. We represent the state directors of low income home Energy Assistance program, the National Program that helps provide block grants to state low income families pay their home energy bill. Our first speaker will be haly laasmemcquilkin. She serves as northeast Regional Representative on the board of trustees for the National Energy assistance records association. She works with the department of health and human services, the office of Community Services and the Delaware Energy and also delaware Energy Assistance director. He contributed to the 2018 handbook and is one of the most widely known internationally recognized set of common principles in universal standards and humanitarian response. After haly, chris mele will speak, he began his career with the u. S. Senate as an inspector and work for Vice President george bush and then president bush. Since 1998 chris has worked for the National Association of regulatory commissioners. Is now the legislative director for energy. He is responsible for the legislative advocacy on energy and transportation issues in washington dc. Nina moussavi works for American Gas Association and is passionate about advocacy and politics while she was in law school and learning about the Lasting Impact that it can have on history. Shes currently legislative analyst at aga. She represents one of 200 National Gas Companies across the United States. Jessica franks will be the following speaker, director of Government Relations for the Edison Electric institute. A trade association for investorowned electric power companies. Jessica covers operations, education, workforce issues, i and before that she was Government Affairs represented in halliburton to work for Speaker John Boehner and speaker paul ryan. I last speaker is kelly farmer, he associate director for the affordability and Energy Efficiency division for the district of columbia area she is responsible for the management of Energy Programs, the Fitness Program and of course the low income home Energy Assistance program. We have a terrific panel and the intent is to provide you with a perspective on Energy Poverty in our state and out of the address not just through one program through a partnership of states, utilities and local governments all working together to help families pay their home energy bill. So a couple of things in thinking about Energy Affordability and Energy Poverty, what does it really mean . It just some broad topic and we hear a lot about poverty in the United States, affordability what specifically is meant by Energy Poverty . For low income families if 10 percent of income is what their energy bill represents, almost 4 times the rate for a nonamerican household so that gives you some perspective of the main point is energy because its the base need like food, like clothing, it doesnt rise proportionally with income so a middle income family is paying maybe a little bit more for energy than a low income family because they have a bigger house but at the end of the day its pretty close to where a low income family might earn twice as much, their energy bill is twice the rate of low income families. When we say that a middle income family will pay 2. 4 percent of their income primarily reflects a have more other thing to keep in mind about this that makes it interesting is that energy bills peaked. A peak in the winter, the summer months so if ill say that about 10 percent of a Family Income goes for home energy or a low income family, during the winter months or summer months that could be 20 to 25 percent. You see how quickly this becomes unaffordable. According to the Us Energy Information administration the average cost of home heating this winter was about 1000. Like any other thing, these are averages. For families using propane, the cost is about 1600. For heating growth about 1600, an enormous burden for families earning 25,000 a year. Natural gas was 584, reflective of the deeper cost of fracking and the overall growth of natural gas. Low income families face agonizing choices every day when they have to buy energy. We surveyed families receiving Energy Assistance under low income home Energy Assistance last winter and what we found, while not surprising reflects just how tight their budgets are. When Energy Prices go up the cause of a variety of factors, for low income families dont have much choice of what to do. They cant say we wont go out to dinner or pay our gas bill, they have to make those kinds of choices so energy have to be more affordable for that region. 37 percent had closed for their home to save utility costs, 25 percent the temperature on safe. 17 percent couldnt afford to pay their energy go that winter. 36 percent say they went without food for at least today and again its probably because they had to pay the heating bill. For natural gas and electricity rules in place in terms of job though its not quite as tired but for those using eating or probing the bill after the day before its over, 41 percent said it went without medical or dental care 31 percent, these are families making tough choices when they haveto be there energy bill. And the last point id like to make about thats becoming consortingwith the aging of our society , people are in the hospital for short terms, they come home when they need equipment that plugs into the wall. They have to have access to Affordable Energy. 82 percent of the people who get Energy Assistance told us they have a disabled person and need electricity for breathing machines or refrigerated medicine. They have to have access to Affordable Energy, its a life or death situation for them. Not only is Energy Expensive for the cost of home heating outside of the families control, there are arguments to be made at a family should save up for the winter but you cant do that when you dont know how cold its going to be so thats going to drive cost of energy orthe amount you need to read it you cant control pricing if you have a in the economy that will drive up the price or you have geopolitical factors. Issues in iraq or iran or venezuela, that drive up the price of oil. All those things very difficult for families plan their energy costs. And lastly i want to talk about low income Energy Assistance program which may in some ways is the first thing i should be talking about. At the main federal program that helps families pay their home energy bills. Its a lot providing a grant which is redistributed to local agencies to get them help paying their homeenergy bills during the winter. The program is not adequately funded at all. We receive reports billion dollars last year, that sounds like a lot of money but hosted 20 percent of the us population, we can only reach 20 percent, one out of fiveof the eligible population. At the limit of what you can do with 3. 3 billion to what the state have done is target the neediest of needy families, about 80 percent that you receive Energy Assistance have a Family Member is disabled, elderly or have ayoung child under the age of six. That really reflects the limitations of what funding has added hundred 50 million to the house for next year. Now that might not sound like a lot, but we use 150 million to serve another 500,000 families but thats really the situation. We have a program not adequately funded but it does reach a lot of families does make a difference. Id like to give you a few examples of how families, in california, to give you more of a context and not as a bunch of numbers, california, a young mother lived in old electrical at electricity set up to bill about 800, therefore by making minimum wage and her husband worked as a seasonal labor so basically a very poor family. With no electricity the family cannot access water, operating plant california was able to assist the family bible paying their bills also they also refer to the counties Weatherization Program to help increase the efficiency of our homes to reduce the bill going forward. Another example in connecticut a single mother of two facing challenges of being homeless came into 80 for help because if you dont pay your energy bills, you can lose yourapartment, lose your lease. Connecticuts connected Services Received the housing subsidy and 500 in funds allowed her to become under energy bills, 500 doesnt sound like a lot of money but if you donthave any resources , and youre facing eviction, that can make the difference between staying in the home and being elected. And one last example in colorado, a mother of three raising children on her own because her husband had a stroke and was confined to a care facility. Her car wasrepossessed and as you know , she received a shut off notice and could not allow her children to suffer the cause. She reached out to the state lucky program and received a assistance that allow her to turn her energy back on. And again, these are all, these dont solve the problem of poverty but allows families to continue andstacy. With that i turn it over to halley. Our next speaker and one thing id like to do is have our speakers provide their thoughts and then open it up to questions you. I guess mark really said everything that was, thank you. Mark said everything that was very important to say, and mostly what i would want to say also so however, i would like to bring to attention some things here. For example a couple of areas, how this entire journey started was a couple of years ago i started to shift myresearch more towards Energy Access , i notice that all the quantitative indicators diverged greatly on their experiences, for example Global Reports, i know that developed countries have 100 percent Energy Access while the people on the field and energy vendors, researchers and everybody else were conveying to us at least at the state level totally different story. We had thousands of missed connections, and even in the United States, people use candles and lanterns for activities. They use various unsafe Energy Sources for heating, you dont have your vision capabilities for patients or personal hygiene because this city has been disconnected. They have thermal imaging of the household are often below World Health Organization recommended standards of minimal 65 degrees in fahrenheit or a maximum of 86 in fahrenheit. So the question started, why these reports reflect so poorly what is happening on the field. And the reason is because Energy Systems are extremely complex. And they issued the report, he tried to minimize all those indicators down into very simple ways to look at the world. So and energy, meanwhile energy is a hybrid system. So energy actually starts to sport and it is important because energy supports all the provisions of basic need. For example, it supports all the cooking, lighting, heating, medical care, education, accessing information and Documentation Services and in summary in our society it has become common on expectations that energy exists out there somehow magically and we dont have to worry about it and its a huge support from infrastructure. And it United States, maybe we havent done as much. For example, england, the National HealthServices Department of health and social care and other nongovernmental agencies have estimated that gold homes across england alone cost 850 million to 1. 3 million homes annually which is a huge benefit to society and that is not even count for economic costs like Cost Reduction and loss of productivity for people who have to stay home. So what are the questions that i think we sometimes dont think about . Strategies include the aspects and ability and affordability, reliability and sustainability or do our strategists develop without realizing that we are overlooking some of those important aspects because we dont share our objectives and other stakeholders . For example, when we develop an Efficiency Program to reconsider their affordability equally across population to include scenarios of Human Behavior and how they might materialize in the world or do we comprehend our ability in Energy Consumption and 2 the convexity of Household Income and how it can influence affordability of energy. To be considered the availability of different Energy Sources and how they affect household Capability Energy services and do we comprehend sufficiently the Budget Constraints differentiate between disposable income and to reconsider Human Behavior prioritization of the expenses. Energy policies are distinct from and income poverty because most of the research sows Energy Poverty does not fully overlap with income poverty. For example, the study shows between energy and income inequality even though theres a strong relationship between income poverty and fuel poverty there are more people poor who are not income poor than people who are fuel and income poor and not all the people who are income for our fuel port. So, this includes a huge portion of the moderate in income household. So that is basically the reason why we think this discussion is important that we all can get together and start discussing exactly when we do strategies that we do include as much affordability and availability and reliability and sustainability because i think often we do strategies we dont think about the inconsistencies of the strategy and how it trickle down to the household level. Thank you, mark. Im with the National Associati