"A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court asked the court to overturn Senate Bill 1, which imposed new consumer protections and required energy companies to disclose if their products are truly “green.”"

"Laurel Peltier felt her blood boil as she scanned the news on her cell phone. She slid back in the chair, uncrossed her legs and put down her reading glasses. A stack of energy bills lay scattered next to a file she was supposed to review.

After seven years of volunteering on Wednesdays at Gedco Cares, a nonprofit in Baltimore’s Govans neighborhood, Peltier has helped thousands of low-income people avoid getting their power cut off. Often at the root of the problem, she’s found: At some point their account got switched to a retail energy company, also called a “third-party supplier,” who offered them low introductory rates before massively hiking them, sometimes after a single missed payment.

And now, on her phone, was the news that a recent Maryland law adding robust consumer protections to this market had just been challenged in court.

Some of the people she’s worked with “unwittingly paid $1,000 more a year to some out-of-state energy supplier,” Peltier said. “It had to stop. People need their power on.”"

Aman Azhar reports for Inside Climate News October 21, 2024. [2]