MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Milwaukee community members and organizations gathered at a town hall Tuesday to share their struggles with rising energy costs and voice support for a state bill that would cap utility expenses for low-income households.
The town hall, titled "Fighting for Our Lights," brought together Milwaukee residents and community organizations to discuss We Energies costs and Assembly Bill 785/Senate Bill 780, which would, "ensure that monthly electricity and gas utility costs for severely energy-burdened or energy-burdened households do not exceed 2% of the household's annual income divided by 12."
Jsanford Bethea, a retired nurse who has lived in an affordable housing unit in Milwaukee for the last 6 years, said he has noticed a significant rise in his energy bills each month.
Watch: Milwaukee residents rally behind bill to cap energy costs for low-income households
"This is making some of the houses very, very unaffordable, even though they said these apartment buildings are affordable," Bethea said.
Bethea said the legislation would make a meaningful difference for residents like him.
"Give us a chance. Give us a cap rate, and we will be able to pay our bills," Bethea said.
Bethea also called on We Energies to recognize the financial realities facing many of its customers.
"I would like We Energies to take in consideration that the people who are living in these homes are on fixed or low incomes, and it's very difficult for us to pay those bills when we have other things that we're trying to pay for," Bethea said.
Christal West of Amani United said rising energy costs are affecting a broad range of Milwaukee residents.
"When you're looking at real families from the middle class all the way down to fixed income and low income, that's hitting everyone hard," West said.
Residents also raised concerns about how the potential growth of data centers in the region could drive energy bills even higher.
In a statement to TMJ4, We Energies said:
"We are working every day to keep customer bills as low as possible. In fact, this year we plan to provide more than $50 million in fuel cost savings and earnings sharing with our Wisconsin customers. Last year, we provided more than $100 million in fuel cost savings and earnings sharing to Wisconsin customers.
Here is an important fact you may not hear tonight, our typical customer bills are lower than the national average and our rates since 2020 have increased less than the rate of inflation.
The majority of bill increases customers are seeing today are due to December and January’s extreme cold weather and higher energy supply costs set by the market. We are helping customers manage those costs through our natural gas storage and LNG facilities, which prevents price spikes. We encourage any customer with concerns about their energy bill to contact us. We will work with them on energy assistance, payment options and energy efficiency tools that can lower bills in future.
Regarding data centers, making sure our customers don’t pay data centers’ costs is at the foundation of our customer protection plan. Under our proposal, data centers will pay their own way — covering the power they use, and the cost of new generation and distribution built to serve them. Our proposal is fair and transparent. It includes strong protections like signed agreements and binding commitments that data centers will pay for anything we build to serve them, even if their business changes or they leave the state."
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