In the month of May we’ve also observed how federal policies and statewide decisions can prioritize utility customers and reliable, sustained access to energy over utility company profit margins. A proposed $30 billion low-interest loans program for electric, water and sewage and broadband providers is working its way through the U.S. Senate, and these loans would allow utilities to recoup money in order to stay afloat without resorting to fines and shutoffs, which utilities have long justified as a way to force people to keep up with bills although penalizing customers often proves to be an ineffective way to get struggling customers to pay their bills. The loans would be conditional on utilities canceling debts for low-income households, and two years after the end of the pandemic, public and small utilities could see the loans forgiven for the amount of outstanding arrears as long as they had not reverted to using punitive measures. Utilities that disconnect or fine customers would be obliged to immediately repay the loan in full. This program, along with the recently passed $35 billion federal investment in water and sanitation infrastructure maintenance, indicates that there is a broad cultural shift happening, which  acknowledges that lacking federal funding for utility infrastructure maintenance has led to utility inaffordability and unreliable energy access, as rising utility rates and shut-offs are often justified by utility companies to afford utility infrastructure maintenance (Lakhani 2021). 

Another action that shows a renewed (if not totally new) federal interest in prioritizing constant and reliable access to energy is the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA)  $7.3 million program named School Uplift, which will train personnel in 160 public schools across seven states on how to reduce energy use. This program will take place over three years, and 11 schools that have completed a pilot program already saved almost 20% on annual energy bills from the behavioral changes they’ve implemented. Additionally, three participating schools have been awarded grants for energy retrofits worth $400,000 each, and five schools have won TVA grants for solar pavilions that will serve as outdoor classrooms (The Associated Press 2021). This robust program comes as a positive surprise, as the TVA has historically failed to proactively and appropriately address energy crises. The TVA is often remembered for their failure to appropriately handle the coal ash spill at the Kingston Coal Plant that occurred in 2008, the largest coal ash spill in the United States. In response to the spill, the TVA paid Jacobs Engineering $64 million to clean it up, and according to Jacobs employees, they lacked adequate safety equipment on the job, and ended their days covered in ash. Of the 900 cleanup workers, more than 30 have died. Another 200 workers are sick or dying (Gaffney 2018).

In Pennsylvania, cases demonstrating the intricacies of power relations within energy markets and surrounding energy regulation emerge. The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission had approved a $1 billion-dollar new natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York, but the project was put on hold initially due to COVID-19, and now due to environmental regulators in New York and New Jersey not approving water permits for the project. After the permit denials, National Grid, a New York gas utility, imposed a moratorium on signing new customers, and attributed it to not having enough gas to service customers without the pipeline. That prompted New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to threaten to revoke National Grid's license to operate its gas utility, which ultimately led National Grid to end the moratorium and pay $36 million, mostly on conservation and clean energy projects. In this case, National Grid’s attempt to thwart environmental regulators by claiming that they would not have enough fuel to service more customers, which evidently was false as they ended up revoking the moratorium, failed due to state interference (Reuters 2021). In another case of state interference siding on the side of customers, the Pennsylvania Utility Commission (PUC), which is a public statewide regulatory body, voted against building a new overhead powerline project that would have taken land away from 200 landowners, including farmers and business owners (Benscoter 2021). By refusing to grant eminent domain to PJM Interconnections, PUC challenged predominant energopower structures, however this infrastructure project is allegedly necessary to address energy market inefficiencies and reliability issues which may impact residents’ energy security in the future. 

During COVID-19, internet access has become essential in order for individuals to remain involved in most facets of society, such as attending school, going to work, receiving healthcare, and attending community events. The “digital divide”, and the communities which are disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to broadband internet and related technologies, including low-income communities and Black and Latino households, predated COVID-19 but was brought into stark relief when stay-at-home orders were mandated. It’s important to note that in this context, the digital divide refers specifically to households that lack access to broadband internet, which is the speed of internet that is required in a household in order to have multiple devices connected to the internet and used at the same time. Although in Philadelphia there are programs like PHLConnectedED, which has provided free home internet service for more than 35,000 families, and Keyspot Innovation and Technology Centers, which will open as free computing centers for families, these attempts to bridge the digital divide still leave people behind (Torrence 2021). Bridging the “digital divide” requires far more than creating ad-hoc programs that bring technologies into impacted communities only in response to a global pandemic: to truly bridge the digital divide it is required that funding and other resources be reallocated and prioritized in communities most affected by the digital divide. The FCC currently estimates that 30 million Americans do not have broadband access, including more than six out of ten rural residents in the country. In Philadelphia alone, at least five zip codes have less than 50% of households using broadband internet. President Biden, signaling his priority of taking steps to bridge the digital divide during his time as president, has proposed spending $100 billion to bring high-speed broadband internet to all parts of the country, and prioritizing support for networks that are owned and operated by not-for-profit entities (Patch 2021).