"Powerless": How Two Scholars Are Rewriting the Energy Narrative

In this episode of The Environmental Justice Lab, Dr. Lesley Joseph sits down with public health expert Dr. Diana Hernández of Columbia University and sociologist Dr. Jennifer Laird of Lehman College to talk about their new book, Powerless: The People's Struggle for Energy.

More than 1 in 4 U.S. households struggle to afford their utility bills, with many facing shutoffs, debt, and the constant stress of choosing between heating and food, or cooling and rent. Powerless brings this hidden crisis into the light, exposing how energy insecurity is not just a personal hardship but a systemic failure rooted in race, class, housing, and policy.

In this episode, Drs. Hernández and Laird reveal:
⚡ Why low-income and marginalized communities are disproportionately energy insecure
🏠 How housing conditions, debt, and disconnection policies deepen inequality
💡 And how we can rethink policy and infrastructure to create a more just energy future

🎧 Tune in now to learn how these two brilliant minds are helping rewire how we think about energy, poverty, and power in America.

Resources: 
Powerless - The People's Struggle for Energy

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
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Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [e-mail]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab podcast. I am your host,
doctor Leslie Joseph, and today we have two very very
very special guests joining us. They've written a great book
came out last year. It's called Powerless, The People's Struggle
for Energy, and they are with us today. On my

(00:41):
screen to the right is doctor Deanna Hernandez. She is
the Associate Professor of socio Medical Sciences in the Mailman
School of Public Health at Columbia University. She is also
the founding Principal investigator of the Energy Equity, Housing and
Health Program and the co director of the Energy Opportunity

(01:05):
Lab at the Center on Global Energy Policy. And to
my left on my screen is doctor Jennifer Laird. She
is an assistant professor of sociology at Layman College. Ladies,
thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thank us.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, yeah, no great. I'm so glad you're here. We
are talking about energy insecurity, and it's the right time
to talk about it because it's really, really, really hot outside.
I don't know where you are. I'm in South Carolina.
I told my daughter, she plays tennis competitively. I said, look,
we're picking you up at twelve o'clock because it's way

(01:46):
too hot to be out there any longer. She wants
to stay till three. I said, not today because it's
really hot. And so I'm so glad that have this
opportunity to speak to both of you about energy and security,
energy policy, all things energy, and I can't wait to
get into it. So let me just start with this.
So in the book, on the first page of the introduction,

(02:10):
you say, I want to read it because it's a
great book. It says household energy a fundamental requirement for
anyone to fully participate in modern society, foster's health, productivity,
and a dignified existence. So I'm going to start with
doctor Hernandez, can you tell me just how important is

(02:31):
energy in our everyday life and what is it like
when we don't have it?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, well, thank you so much, Elsie for having us.
It's really an honor to be on the podcast. And
I'm just gonna like you started with the story, So
I'll start with the story and say that, like right now,
I am running on a computer, my phone is charging,
I have an air conditioning unit, a fan in the background,

(02:57):
lights like there are way in which energy is surrounding
my very existence right now as I sit and execute
this podcast with you, uh and Jen. So that to
me is really about like kind of the backdrop in
which energy it basically powers the basic essentials of life refrigeration, cooking, lighting, cooling, heating,

(03:22):
and even though we may not pay attention to it
because it is like you know, what we say in
the book is that it's the software.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's the operating system that.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Really allows for a home to be habitable and to
be livable, for food to be like eaten and prepared
and stored properly, et cetera. Right, we kind of take
it for granted, and yet it's right there without it,
and when it crashes or when it's unavailable, it really

(03:50):
becomes you really you realize how central.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
It is actually to our everyday existence.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, perfect, that delayered, So just be off of that.
I know, looking at your bio, you do a lot
of work in the poverty sector. You've done a lot
of research on poverty and various forms of inequity and insecurity.
What has your understanding of this issue been like in
terms of people that you may have worked with or
places that you've done research in as it relates to

(04:17):
energy and how does that fit into the kind of
work that you've been doing as a researcher as a professional.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you doctor Joseph for
having us. I have to admit, before I started collaborating
with doctor Hernandez on this work, I coming from the
poverty policy world. I myself overlooked this issue in part
because if you look at the safety net budget of

(04:44):
the federal government, energy assistance is a very small share
of that. You know, a lot of much larger share
goes to food assistants or to cash assistance. And so
I am embarrassed to admit I just dismissed the problem
because the solution was so Now that we've done the research,
or now that I've become part of this work, I

(05:04):
realize that the solution being so small is part of
the problem.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
Right.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
So the reason why it's such a pervasive problem is
because we're not doing enough to deal with it. But
after I started collaborating with Diana and I understood two things.
The problem was much more prevalent than I previously realized.
So this wasn't hundreds of thousands of households, which I

(05:31):
think is what I had been thinking based on what
happens when you take away energy exsistance or not. It
was millions of households. But the other thing I realized once,
so Diana's done a lot of qualitative work in this space.
She traveled around the country, So all the qualitative work
on the book is based on the qualitative data she collected,

(05:53):
traveling around the country, all around the country, including Puerto Rico,
the northeast, all the regions the country, meeting with people
at energies and centers, meeting with practitioners. The severity of
the problem is what I understood or started to understand
once I looked at the qualitative data, because it's the

(06:13):
narrative accounts in the book that I would argue are
just as or maybe even more. As a quantitative sociologist,
I find the qualitative data even more compelling because there's
an aspect, there's the dignity aspect of this. So it's
happening inside the home. You know, we all know what
it's like to want to host people in our home

(06:34):
and what it's like if your house.

Speaker 5 (06:36):
Is a total mess.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
But let's say if your house is way too hot
or way too cold, or you haven't you don't have
the lights on. You can't turn on the lights. So
there's a dignity aspect and a humiliation aspect of what's
going on, and people really are who are experiencing the
most severe forms or even trying to avoid a disconnection

(06:57):
kind of what Diana's coined. This vigilant conservation of just
trying to avoid a disconnection or avoid yriges.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
Creates these trade.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Offs where you know, people are going to feed their families,
are going to feed their kids tune fish sandwiches for
a week just so they can pay the utility bill,
or we're not going to use the heater, we're not
going to use the AC And the humanity or the
inhumanity of it became apparent to me once I started
to look at the qualitative data and there's a lot
of families out there that are suffering within their homes

(07:31):
in ways that are humiliating.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean I think you're right, and
don't be embarrassed. I mean a lot of us hadn't
thought about this as an issue to be concerned about
when it comes to energy and security. I know, for
me and my family, I have four children, and so
we always talk about how okay we need to keep
the thermostat here. We need to do this this way,
and it's never and I should say it's about energy conservation,

(07:59):
it's about the environment, but honestly, it's about cutting that
bill down. And so how are we going to keep
this energy bill as low as possible? And I think
some people think about energy as a way, as something
that you can manage if you kind of operate in
certain ways in certain capacities, and not really a function
of being secure insecure. And so just for us listening,

(08:23):
and for those of us who don't know, doctor Hernetz,
can you define for us what energy insecurity actually is
and how you'd be able to identify if someone is
in fact energy insecure, because I'm sure it's more than
just oh no, this month, the bill is really high.
I don't know how to pay it. I'm sure it

(08:43):
goes beyond that, just like how food and security goes
beyond just hunger, And so how would you define that
for us?

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, that's such a good question. Basically, I would say that,
first of all, the way that energy insecurity is formally
defined is the inability to adequately meet household energy needs.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that definition is purposely broad.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
So it has like an economic component like you were saying,
where you know, it's partly about like energy conservation, but
really that is a means to an end around keeping
the bills as low as possible, because the bill component,
even for people that are that have let's say financial

(09:26):
that are that are financially secure, they might still be
wanting to save on their bills because who wants to
pay more.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Than they don't have to.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
And then there's another piece of it, which is about
housing and the physical conditions of housing and whether or
not your home is equipped with a proper cooling, cooling
and heating system, you know, an up to date electrical
panel that allows you to power like the technologies of today.

(09:58):
And then there's also so now increasingly the issue of
power outages. As we speak, you know, it's ninety nine
degrees in New York City, and since yesterday when this
kind of heat wave began, I guess on Sunday, today's Tuesday,
so we're now in day three of it, and basically

(10:20):
within twenty four hours we already started to see many
power outages in all parts of the city, and then
telecommunications outages and all of this stuff because our systems
aren't really built for extreme heat and also for extensive
energy consumption, and so on the one hand, this physical
aspect also includes like the grid and like the energy

(10:46):
infrastructure that then you know, powers our homes and everything else.
And then there's the coping aspect. So Jen was talking about,
you know, like how people are vigilantly conserving their energy,
but there are ways in which people are trading off

(11:07):
between medicine and food and energy, or as the story
of Alicia shows, like buying something like shoes, replacing shoes
in order to you know, and prioritizing a utility bill
even though her child's sneakers were like well passed that,

(11:27):
you know, like they needed.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
To be replaced. It could also be.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
That people are seeking assistance and they're seeking help. So
there are essential elements of energy insecurity, and since you
pointed it out, I want to just talk about what
those essential elements are. So on the economic side, the
ways that you would know that people are energy insecure
is that they present with difficulty paying their utility bills,

(11:56):
either that it's a real hardship to like actually pay
the bill when it's due, or that they're late or
they only make partial payments. That they've accrued utility debt,
so they're behind on their utility bills, and that basically
means that they are Then that triggers a disconnection notice,
so now they're at risk of a disconnection. Then you

(12:19):
have physical on the physical side, you have deficiencies and inefficiencies,
and then also those power outages that I talked about.
On the coping side, there's difficult choices, so those trade offs.
There's also thermal discomfort in the sense that you might

(12:41):
be experiencing really like extremely high or extremely low indoor
temperatures so it's really cold in your house, are really warm,
and that's kind of either intentional again to save, or
it has to do with the fact that your energy
systems at home are inadequate for the conditions. They don't work,

(13:05):
you know, they've fallen into disrepair and also deprivation this
idea of like under consuming energy again to save and
just like we have a way of describing food insecurity,
so like hunger is one example an instance as a
bit more universal about when people are feeling like all right,

(13:28):
like my next meal should come, but hunger being kind
of an extended version of that again because maybe it's
challenging to afford you bills at food. Rather on the
energy side, we talk about that as drain. And it's
not just that like we talk about it. This is
how participants talked about it. They talked about their their pockets,

(13:51):
feeling dreamed, their the appliances kind of draining, the you know,
the cost and that kind of I think that the
experience itself was dreaming. But malnutrition is kind of the
extreme version of hunger, and in our work, depletion is

(14:12):
the extreme version of dream. So we wanted to find
language that helped us to describe that more visceral feeling
of being energy insecure, which is drained, but also like
when it's NonStop, it's kind of an incessant hardship that

(14:32):
weighs on you for extended periods of time, Like how
depleting that feels, and it can be for any given household.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
So those are the essential elements.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
And you know, we in the book we talk about
symptoms and like being able to properly diagnose energy insecurity
because now we have better language that describes these kind
of indicators or symptoms of energy and security, so that
then on the other side of it, we can treat

(15:05):
the conditions, right, Like you can't really solve a problem
or treat a problem that hasn't been well characterized. And
that's really, in some ways the biggest goal of the book.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Oh interesting, Interesting when you think about these dimensions and
these elements, is it a situation where when you're trying
to understand someone's situation and their energy security or insecurity,
do you need to exhibit multiple indicators? Is it just one?

(15:39):
Is it over a certain period of time? Because I
imagine depending on where you live, summers are more consumptive
than winters, or maybe the vice versa, or falls in springs,
and so maybe if I can just get through this
heat wave like you're describing, we'll be okay again, because
the bills come down, I rent things less often, will

(16:01):
be fine. Maybe I'm not energy insecure as a result
of that, but maybe if it's been six months or
I haven't paid my bill in a year, or have
alonely allow you to not pay it, then I'm described
as that. Like is there a way of really identifying
and pinpointing it on households individuals?

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (16:24):
So I mean we went through you know, this a
PureView book, and you know, initially you wanted to just
be able to like lay out the indicators, but we
had some economists and they were like, well, try to
be as conservative as possible in your estimation, and so
it's conditioned on receiving a disconnection notice. But the idea

(16:48):
is also that there are two or more that you
experienced two or more of these indicators, right, so we
just kind of lay out and Jen, I don't know
if you want to talk about this is in chapter
two of the book where we talk about the prevalence
of energy and security. But basically the idea is necessarily
that you just have like a power outage and then
your energy insecure, but that there's an aspect of it

(17:11):
that's related to financial hardship and that conditioning around like
basically being behind on your utility bills. That really is
kind of shows the layering and like the cumulative burden
of these experiences and that the financial hardship, because most
people can get out of a situation if they have

(17:33):
enough money, but if you have financial hardship, it makes
it harder to like, you know again like use the
air conditioning without concern, or you know, like repair something
that has fallen into disrepair and appliance or something when
it does, or just to stay on top of your bills. Right,

(17:53):
So there's that combination of things, and that's part of
the reason why it isn't just one.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
It's actually conditioned on it. To Jen, I don't know
if there's anything else you want to see.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Yeah, I would add that if you look at the data,
the survey data, it's clear.

Speaker 5 (18:09):
So for example, like one in five households.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
Reports that at some point in the past year they've
had to reduce or forego food or medicine to pay
an energy bill. So that's not a disconnection. Notice that's
not a disconnection, but that's a pretty big sacrifice that
people are making to keep up with their utility bills.
And so that's that vigilant conservation that we pick up
in the data, kind of trying to avoid the crisis.

(18:37):
But that in itself, even though those a lot of
those families would not qualify for energy assistance for example,
but they're if I'm giving up food or medicine to
pay my energy bill, I would argue that's a significant hardship.
And so that's kind of one of the more broader indicators.
And then you can see if you narrow in. Roughly

(18:59):
like sixteen percent of households are interrears with their utility provider.
And then you know, roughly ten percent of households have
received a disconnection notice in the past year, and then
two to three million households are about three percent of
experience to disconnection.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
So we're talking about millions of households.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
But the indicators of the problem are widespread, and you
see a lot of activity prior to the crisis of
avoidance or people kind of this vigilant conservation that that
households are going through. That in and of itself is
extremely stressful and you don't want, you know, families having

(19:39):
to give up their diabetes medication so they can pay
their utility bill.

Speaker 5 (19:43):
That's where like some of these health consequences.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, no, that, I mean, that would be awful. And
you know, this is a different kind of podcast, and
so I know there are a lot of you know, economists,
there's a lot of kind of quantitatively driven, data driven
types of analysts who really do want to be able
to put numbers to things. But we are talking about

(20:06):
people and the fact that people are having to do
over and above what the average family would do just
to try and keep things removing and keep things on,
I think is something that we really should take note
of because the fact that you're able to avoid these
indicators by shedding other life giving aspects of your existence,

(20:30):
in my opinion, isn't really helpful and doesn't really constant
the kind of life that you want to live, which
want people to have all that they need to make
it through. Because I was just thinking about this so
my only coilarious food. I've done some food research so
I can think about it in those terms, and maybe Jen,
you can help me with this, because in the food world,

(20:52):
there's levels of insecurity, right, there's low, there's moderate, there's high,
there's severe. And it's based on the access that you
have to food. It's based on your economic situation, it's
based on your household size. Like lots of different characteristics
can place you in one of those categories, and it's
usually identified by the household themselves. Right, you're doing the survey,

(21:16):
you're saying, I've you know, not eaten this meal, I've
you know, foregone my meal to give meals to my
children this many days of the week, and you're kind
of identifying in yourself. Is there something similar to that
in the energy space where there's a low, medium high,
are there ways that you've kind of seen people just

(21:38):
not by the numbers, but the people themselves having to
do things differently to manage those issues, And how do
you kind of understand what the situation truly is, not
what we would like to say it is based on
the numbers, but what things are really like for these
kinds of families.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, we a when we were working on the book
and going through peer review, and a lot of the
reviewers were very familiar, like yourself, with the food and
security literature, and we went through a period where we're like, okay,
let's create an energy and security indicator that's very as
similar as possible to the USDA Food indicators of you know,

(22:18):
based on levels of severity. And the challenge there was
that those indicators are based in large part on not
having the resource. So how many days were you hungry?
How many days, how many meals did you have to
go without? And so when we tried to say, okay,
how long have you been without energy? How long have
you not been able to turn on the lights or something,

(22:38):
that's the crisis point of energy and security and what
precedes that also is part of the problem thermal discomfort.
And you also mentioned the issue of self reporting and surveys,
which some reviewers are very quick to latch onto.

Speaker 5 (22:55):
So the.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Survey day that we use as the Residential Energy Consumption Survey,
a federally funded survey of nationally representative households, a survey
that is nationally representative of US households, and one of
our indicators is, you know, have you kept your home
at an healthy temperature? And that's the wording of the
survey question. What is unhealthy to you may not be

(23:21):
unhealthy to me, both objectively and subjectively, and so there's
there's always issues with the indicators. I think when I'm
talking to someone who's not familiar with this issue, sometimes
I have found and Diana canway into because she has
a lot more experience than I do. And in talking
to to kind of general audiences about this, talking about

(23:43):
disconnection notices and disconnections sometimes is a way to anchor
the issue because they're not We're not going to get
into debates about what is really unhealthy what is thermal discomfort?
So I think if you're talking to you know, a
room full of economists, for example, I would anchor the
or I would at least begin the discussion in the

(24:04):
world of disconnection notices and disconnections.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
But the problem.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
With that, and Diana's argued this lot is that's the
crisis point, and a good safety net program would intervene
far earlier than that, you know, when like people are
giving up food or medicine to pay their energy bill.
Intervene then intervene even earlier when they're keeping the thermostat
way too higher, way too low. But Diana, you probably

(24:30):
have some thoughts on this.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah, I happen to be looking at page one hundred
and twelve in the book. It's figure six point one
where we just talk about like extreme indoor temperatures, so
your home is extremely cold or it's extremely hot, and
there we kind of break it down by the number

(24:53):
of days that people are reporting their homes being either one.
And food and security like has these kind of the
break the breakdown of moderate or severe or kind of
you know, low food insecurity we actually take a little
bit of a different stance because it's so really anchored

(25:14):
in the dimensions of energy and security that we present
a lot of the data as economic and physical and coping.
So like, at what point are you actually showing signs
of severity by virtue of these issues being stacked and
they're actually what you see is that there's almost no
distinction between homes being too hot or too cold at

(25:38):
an extreme level when they when when households are experiencing
both physical and economic aspects of energy and security. And
the reason why we could be a little bit more
detailed here is that, in addition to REX, I also
designed and fielded a survey called the Energy, Equity, Housing
and Health Survey, which was done after I had done

(26:03):
all of the in depth interviews, so it was informed
by not just having literally freshly done a bunch of interviews,
but you know, also a body of work that preceded
it that was trying to be more precise again and like,
how do we distinguish between these different issues, Like you know,
an unhealthy temperature, Not only is it like an objective

(26:23):
or subjective issue, it really doesn't distinguish between the seasonality
and like, you know, one of the things that we
know and a lot of the work that I've been
doing separate from our collaborative work has been based in
New York City, not exclusively, but some of it and
you know, related to heating seasons or the lack of

(26:46):
air conditioning and whatever, and all of a sudden, the
picture of energy and security and when people are experiencing
these hardships really changes based on seasonality.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
So what we wanted to be able to talk about.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
Is the depth of the severity based on how people
if they only have economic issues or if they only
have physical issues or none. Right, what you see kind
of over and over again is that energy secure households.
First of all, they just present with less risk, not surprising.

(27:20):
But people that then on the opposite side have this
like multi dimensional.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Experience of energy and security.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
They show up on the most extreme levels. They're the
ones that are most at risk for disconnections. They're also
the ones when they are disconnected to be most active
in trying to sort out that crisis, that conundrum, that
like needing to reach out to family and friends and
to churches and to get energy assistance and to do

(27:49):
all of that stuff. In the meantime, actually most people
are doing so much to be self sacrificial and there
and how they deal with energy and secure, like making
it a private matter, not necessarily involving also because it's
burdensome to do so, like to travel different places. This

(28:09):
chapter six is really about a woman who goes to
a food bank right on a regular basis and feels
really welcome. There has options in terms of like what
kind of food, you know, allotment is appropriate for her
and her family based on what they like, their preferences,

(28:31):
their family size, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
And you know, that's one piece of it.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
But the other piece of it is like why that
same person that does show up to the food pantry
doesn't show up to the energy assistance offices, And it's
because they.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Want all this paperwork.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
You know, it's so challenging to go like all to
all the different offices, and when you finally do get
the help, oftentimes it's not enough. So we were talking
about crisis, right, and one of the things that we
learned from this book is that people are in fact
reaching out for help when they are at highest risk
of or experiencing an active disconnection.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
And multiple layers of energy insecurity.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
But we from a preventive standpoint, right, I'm a professor
of public health, and public health is all built on prevention,
and you can't do preventive work if you're only kind
of reaching people when they're in the emergency room.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Essentially.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, no, I completely agree with that, and so let's
talk about that. So when someone is experiencing these markers,
these dimensions, these signs of energy insecurity, I imagine. So
on the food side, we have SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition

(29:53):
Assistance program for those of us who don't have enough
money to kind of sustain our everyday existence, have tan
IF the temporary assistant for needy families. I would imagine
that there's an energy version of this that people could
tap into. You're mentioning going to the Energy Assistance Office's
INTI assistance program, Like what are those and how does

(30:17):
one get those resources into their homes and get that
help to deal with energy and security? Because I imagine it's
something similar to these other programs. Maybe it's not. I
could use some help understand that. More so, what can
someone do when they're in any situations?

Speaker 5 (30:36):
So there is a.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
Low income Home Energy Assistance program also known as light HEAP. Okay,
although that all of the federal employees of light HEAP
have were fired in the past few months by the
Trump administration, so the future of that program is in jeopardy.
And Diana can probably talk more about that, but again
situating it against SNAP and tanaf So, I believe the

(31:02):
latest numbers I saw was that SNAP gets to more
than eighty percent of all those who qualify light heap.
The main energy assistance federal benefit only reaches roughly twenty
percent of those who are eligible, and so there's a
lot of families, you know, of the seventy two million
households that are eligible, roughly only fourteen point five million

(31:22):
receive any kind of assistance. And the benefit that they
get has some limitations, and that it's mostly designed as
a program for people in cold weather states or experiencing
cold weather hardships. So there's a seasonality of it. In

(31:43):
many places, it just runs out and so it was
no longer available after a certain time point in the season,
and the benefit itself is insufficient. So the average heating
expenditure or heating grant I believe is a little over
four hundred dollars. And we all know, as you know,

(32:04):
especially in cold weather states, you know, families that are
in arrariages are experiencing usually amounts that are much greater
than that. I don't know, Diana probably has something to
add to that as well.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, so light HEAP is the kind of backbone of
the US's energy assistants, you know, like safety net, right, So,
like you have this program it's really intended, as Jen
was saying, to help people.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Heat their homes.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
For the longest time, it was actually called the Low
Income Home Heating Energy Assistance Program, so like it was
really it's based in the history of that program, which
was in the nineteen seventies. It was an oil crisis,
and that oil crisis affected heating fuels, and it was

(32:56):
designed kind of rapidly, just like we actually had these
like rapid response policies in COVID.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
That was also true in that period.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Now forty years later, the program hasn't really been reimagined
or updated relative to what's happening these days, which is
that utility bills are high around the year, not necessarily
only in the winter season. That people with some of

(33:27):
the highest burdens are actually in the southeast.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
So you're in South.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Carolina, right, like Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona, very
hot places where there's you know, in some places high
poverty and then in other places it's a question of
high temperatures and then needs to cool and how much
more expensive that tends to be. But the formula that

(33:53):
kind of guides the distribution of l HEAP resources is
based on primary really heating degree days, which is like
the number of days that are required to heat your home.
So it's based on like outdoor temperature and then cooling
degree days. But in order for you to really activate

(34:16):
more the cooling degree days, the funding formula from nineteen
eighty four, not the nineteen eighty one formula, has to
be activated. We're just talking about antiquated energy assistance policies
and programs that are helpful, but they are not adequate

(34:38):
to meet the demands of today, which actually, I think
when I think about the timing of this book, you know,
I have been working on this work for a very
long time, and you know, I think building up a
field of research kind of takes a lot of time,
and it takes a lot of different angles and ways

(34:59):
to look at something and whatever. But I think what's
been kind of most interesting about releasing this book in
this moment is that many more people are wondering about
their utility bills. I just posted an up ed today
about like, you know, elections. We have a little bit

(35:20):
more attention on energy affordability from a political perspective, but
not enough, right like, but there's a little bit more activity,
a lot more awareness about this because we used to
be able to take for granted energy as like a
really inexpensive service, right and that's just no longer the case,

(35:42):
And so we're at this kind of precipice. Now, this
is like moment in time when it could either go
really bad or it can go better. But you know,
the there's uncertainty in the in the continuation of lie
Heap and the kind of sister program, which is the
Weatherization Assistance Program, which actually helps to like weatherise make

(36:07):
more efficient homes. And I want to say that there's
uncertainty because a lot of you know, the pattern has
been threats that really like put everybody in some kind
of like a chaotic scramble, and then a recalibration to
like the norm. So I don't, you know, I feel
like I don't necessarily want to participate in the alarmist

(36:29):
like nature of things. But I will say that undoubtedly
federal funding, even if it's stated it's kind of current levels,
is insufficient for the magnitude of the problem that we
have we have not only exposed in this book, but
that many people are experiencing in so many different ways.
So we need more state level participation. We need more cities,

(36:54):
we need utilities, we need many more people to be
involved on the solution side, given the com flexity and
the growing kind of intensity of this issue.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, I mean, when you were talking about the federal
programs and the way that things have changed with the
new administration, the first thing I thought about was the
role that states played, because that's usually the big push
when this happens. The idea is that the states know
better what people need, they're more localized, they're more because

(37:27):
they're better positioned to help those in need. And so
do you have any sense this is for either of you.
Do you have any sense of what states are doing.
Is there a common kind of state practice to help
people who deal with energy and security? Is it wildly
varying from state to state where there's some that have
great ones and some states have none. Like what is

(37:48):
your understanding of the landscape state the state across the
country when it comes to this kind of assistance that
people need.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
I mean, I'll start and just say it's very patchwork.
So in the president's budget, a skinny budget where they
eliminated light heap just recently that was submitted to Congress,
they argued that you don't need federal energy, states already
provide disconnection protections. Well, first of all, that's not true.

(38:15):
There's almost a dozen states that don't provide cold weather
disconnection protections. I think more than twenty states don't provide
hot weather connection protections. A dozen states don't, you know,
protect vulnerable families from disconnections. So if we just rely
on the states, there are some states that are more

(38:36):
innovative than others. You know, California, for example, I think,
and Diana can talk about it in more detail, has
been more innovative than other states. But when we look
at where the problem is most severe, and you see
this too with poverty, that in the southeastern US poverty
is high, it's also where energy and security is high,

(38:56):
and where it's only getting higher, in part because of
economic indicators, but also because of climate change. It's only
getting hotter, severe weathers only getting more severe, and so
and those are the states that are the least protective
and the least likely to intervene when when interventions need
to be done. So if we just rely on the states,

(39:18):
a lot of families will suffer.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
Well, Dyn, I'm sure, yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
I mean, I'll just add and say that I think
it's only nine states that actually have programs above and
beyond the black brands that are given by light heat
to the states and territories in the US.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
So there's very little participation.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Beyond what the federal government actually allocates for this. And
you know, so some states have done things like energy
assistance or like discounts, utility discounts. In New York State
where we are, the energy Affordability pro came out of

(40:02):
one rate case, so it's a statewide utility discount and
that kind of is across the board. So with investor
owned utilities, people are able to get some sizeable portion
of their utility bill reduced and that helps. There are
other states that do percent of incompayment plans. In Colorado,

(40:26):
where they have an active PIP program, only eight percent
of all eligible households are actually enrolled. So one of
the things that we basically know is that there are
programs that are on the books, but they're not programs
that people are making the most use of and for

(40:49):
whatever reason, I think it's kind of attached to this
idea that it's difficult to enroll, it's difficult to re certify.
It's like a challenge to like prove your case and
your you know, like eligibility.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
For these programs. But it means that.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Also, like a lot of resources are left on the
table even when there's so much need, right and like,
to me, that's probably one of the most ironic aspects
of this, is that there's a little bit of an
under utilization and under enrollment, but there's also like so

(41:27):
that means sometimes that there's resources left on the table,
but it could also means, as Jen kind of alluded
to earlier, that there's just not enough in the pot
to begin with to really go around and support people
as they need help.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah. Yeah, And as you're talking, I'm thinking about how
And of course, the pandemic was an awful time for
a lot of reasons. A lot of people lost their lives,
a lot of people were driven into poverty as a result.
But then there was a response from the government that
was very hopeful. In that moment, there was this kind
of universal we're not gonna cut your water off. We're

(42:04):
not gonna cut your power off. I remember there was
free school lunch, which was so exciting, like everybody had
lunches every day. There was no is it free or reduced.
We had this kind of imaginative approach to ensuring that
everyone's needs were met. And obviously that those programs have

(42:26):
not been renewed, they have not been continued, but it
did demonstrate that there is a possibility that those things
could actually be in place and be a part of
how we just operate as a country and not this
current situation that we're in. And there's a line in
your book that I absolutely I loved reading it, but

(42:48):
then I got sad after I read it. It says
for when it says, under the previous administration, energy policy
centered disadvantaged communities as primary beneficiaries of the cleaner transition
and unfolded rapidly. But these programs were never fully realized.
And then you say, given the outcome of twenty twenty
four election, the continuation of these programs are in doubt,

(43:12):
and so the results are in the Trump administration is
back in the White House. You've mentioned this before, Jen,
that the light heat program has been discontinued or the
people have been all let go from working on that program.
What would you say has been the we'll call it
fallout or the impact of this new administration's actions in

(43:38):
the energy security realm? And what do you see as
some of the biggest challenges that are kind of either
emerging or that have really been amplified by this administration's actions.
We'll start with Gin. You're the quantitative one.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
Sure, I would say, we don't know yet. And the
problem is there's two problems. One by the time the
data comes in. So now you brought up the pandemic
and poverty during the pandemic, we know that poverty actually
went down during the pandemic. The poverty rate went down
because of all the emergency funds that were available for
families and the payments that went out to families from

(44:14):
the federal government. You saw a similar thing with energy
and security in that there were widespread disconnection moratoriums during
the pandemic. Everyone agreed we should not disconnect families during
a pandemic, and so in security also did not go
up during the pandemic because of that. The issue that
I'm concerned, So the two issues are that it takes

(44:37):
time for the data to come in and to be
collected for us to see, okay, quantitatively, how much worse
are things getting right now? But what I really worry
about is how this administration is shutting down data collection efforts.
So they're shutting down getting rid of the people who
do administer the surveys, who field the surveys, who analyze

(44:57):
the surveys. I mean, these surveys take a lot of work,
and so I worry that we might not even get
the data to tell us what the impacts are.

Speaker 5 (45:08):
I'm sure Dana has some other thoughts on this as well.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
Well, Yeah, I mean on the data side, you know
the data availability question, right, the REX is administered every
four years and released, you know, like even with some
time after that, and that makes it challenging because it's like, okay,
every four years, that's just not a viable kind of

(45:34):
like timeframe to be tracking these issues. But I was
going to take the response to that question a little
bit in a different direction, which is that this current
administration has been talking a lot about energy dominance, and
the idea is like, if you flood the markets with

(45:55):
fossil fuel based energy, that'll drive down the costs and
basically that will be the kind of secret sauce and
making energy more affordable. Now what, And because the contrast
that you you know, kind of highlighted in the passage
that you wrote in the book is that we were
on a very different path just a few months ago,

(46:18):
and that path was about embracing a clean energy economy,
adjust energy transition, basically moving in the direction of leveraging
rooftop solar and decarbonizing you know, our energy systems and
also our homes and you know, just something that is

(46:39):
like less polluting and more equitably like resourced and designed
at the outset right, So justice forty like with all
of the different like mandates around ensuring that households that
live in disadvantaged communities had a resounding amount of like
the benefits the energy transition that was just like halted

(47:03):
even though most of the big ticket you know projects
and like infrastructure development projects are happening in Red States,
this idea around energy dominance and you know, embracing you know,
fossil fuels and basically heavily polluting energy sources put communities

(47:25):
that are experiencing energy and security and new forms of
risk and hardship right like it. You know, it's like
Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, It's the wildfires in the West.
It's all these things that are also like make it
that much more challenging for the households that are experiencing

(47:46):
energy and security also to experience and recover from these
kind of big climate events, like extreme weather events. And
so that notion of like denying that climate change exists,
like you know, basically moving in a very different direction

(48:06):
in terms of energy sourcing and really just stifling any
progress toward a clean and just energy transition is to me,
like what characterizes the priorities of the current administration when
it comes to some of these issues.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
You know, I'm so glad you brought that up, because
I wasn't going to go into the policy side. But
we got to push this a little bit more because
I can hear I'm in South Carolina, very red, very
much of fossil fuel, oil and gas based industries from
here all the way through down to Texas, and I
can hear my colleagues in this department's engineering department tell

(48:51):
me things like this insecurity situation is the reason why
we need more drilling. We need more oil and gas exploration.
We need to get more resources here in the States.
We need energy independence. The more we can get we
already know how to use it. We can drive the

(49:12):
prices of energy down by extracting more from the ground
and burning it like we've always done how we fuel
the industrial revolution that way. We need more of that,
not less. All of you environmental people out there who

(49:32):
want to do things differently, you're forgetting about the cost
that people are bearing each and every day. And if
you would just let us drill offshore private lands, indigenous areas,
we can push those prices down and make the economy
work for everybody. What is your response to that line

(49:55):
of thinking and argument for a different way of producing energy.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
I mean, definitely there's a supply and demand dynamic, and
you know we know that when energy is kind of
ample and its supply like it does impact costs. But
I want to actually anchor this my response, at least
my portion of the response in a story. So one

(50:23):
of the reasons why I chose Texas Karrentes County, Texas
in particular as a site for the book is that,
you know, in the mid twenty tents, this was a
place that was like just was like, oh, they were
doing all the fracking there, right, the hydraulic fracturing, like

(50:46):
you know, they were drilling and extracting and pipelines and
all this stuff. But I interviewed a woman who basically
sold the rights, so she was a homeowner. She sold
the rights for them to like create the pipelines or
whatever underneath her her home.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
But at the same time, like when that money ran out, she.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Was basically living without gas for over a year, and
in that time, she was like warming up hot water
on a hot plate, she was, I mean, and there
was a time actually she didn't even have running water,
so she had like water to like you know, bathe
and wash the dishes and then separate one to drink.

(51:32):
And she was so worried about whether or not people
had actually put uh you know, covered the water sources
because she didn't want any of the mesquitoes and things
to get in a lot of labor. And yet we're
talking about all this abundant flow of energy that was
literally going through the foundation of her property, but that

(51:54):
she couldn't benefit from because while you have this supply
dynamic happening without there being guarantees, right or thinking about
energy as a basic right, for instance, you would have
this kind of abuse so that some people are using
energy without concern somewhere else, but the people that are

(52:16):
actually the communities and the households and the individuals that
are facilitating that access actually it could be without it
for so long and have to do all of these
different workarounds just.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
To get by.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
And to me, like, that's exactly the opposite, and it's
you know, we oftentimes think about these issues and these
tensions as a developing world issue, right we need, you know,
the industrial revolution and like all of the kind of
growth that comes from having energy access in certain domains,

(52:49):
and you know how that is the distinguishing factor between
industrialized societies and those that are not yet and this
tension around like whether or not you know, like places
in you know, the global South should have access to
energy in this way.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
But the truth is.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
That even in this country, we have this dichotomy of
people that are like the energy haves and the energy
have nots, and a lot of times they live side
by side.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yeah, Jen, what are your thoughts about that? I mean,
I could make an economic argument that all of your
families that we're working that you work with that are impoverished.
We're struggling with INNGY assistance needs. Should just let me
go to the reservations, go to the federally unprotected lands,

(53:39):
get that oil, let me process it, send it on
down and those families will be better off as a result. Like,
what are your thoughts about that?

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Well, I would say, just historically, we don't see that
in the data. So it's not like when energy prices drop,
so does energy and security. Oh it's interesting, And to
Diana's point, it's you know, there are people who will institutions, organizations,
corporations who know how to you know, co opt the

(54:14):
profits and the rents and all the savings from these.
So yes, the price of gas could go down, or
the price of electricity could go down, but it's I'm
very skeptical of the argument that those savings will be
passed on to families.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Okay, I got you, And so we got to wrap
this thing up a little bit. But I do want
to end on some hope. We need a little hope
before we go, and so in your chapter, chapter thirteen,
you do lay out some policy, some initiative that we
could kind of engage to help things improve in the
energy sector. We don't have time to go through all

(54:54):
of them, but I do want to touch on a
couple of things that really stood out to me. In
one was the idea of energy as a human right,
which I hadn't thought about, but now I think about it.
It's like, well, of course, but then why isn't it?
And so there's a discussion about that in the book,
and you have your sparked framework for advancing energy security.

(55:19):
And so in a few minutes we have left. Because
we've been talking, I've been keeping you here longer than
I should have. Touched on each of those things quickly
for me and let us all know what it means,
for instance, to have energy as a human rights, what
was it mean for to be recognized that way, And
then tell us about this framework that you've kind of

(55:40):
introduced in your book and how that would help move
things forward. I want to start with doctor Hernandez.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
All right, so we have, you know, these kind of
established ideas around human rights, health as a human right,
housing as a human right, you know, the right to
not have you know, like I guess the United Nations
Article forty eight has like this kind of breakdown of
different human rights and that's important. Energy is an enabler

(56:10):
of all of those. There's no such thing as like
the right to health, the rights of housing, the right
to many of the other kind of recognize human rights
without energy as a kind of undercurrent.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
So there's that portion of it.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
And then the Sparked Action framework is really about like
so sparked is an acronym and it stands for survey
screens and public health surveillance. So the data side that
Jen was talking about participation and energy decision making, the
idea that like people just need to be more involved,

(56:50):
more knowledgeable about you know, like the governing aspects of
energy affordable bills. How do you create pathways for affordability
and and variability in terms of like where people are.
You know, we see that in so many of the
other sectors, but in energy there is this kind of
idea that equal is the right way to go, but

(57:11):
that has like really unequal consequences a robust social and
energy safety net, So really thinking about how do we
like anchor people and provide services when they need them.
Knowledge and energy literacy, electrification, energy efficiency, and the clean

(57:34):
energy transition. I still believe that that actually can provide
a pathway to some of the like energy philanthropy and
donations and pantries that we also talk about as like
interesting innovations in this work, and then fundamentally disconnection reform,
Like are we in a.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Society that you know, like allows for and.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Basically weaponizes access to energy because of affordability challenges? And
that's a moral question that I think after reading this
book most readers are going to have to contend with
at some point. It is like, what is the moral
obligation around the ethical consumption of energy but also around

(58:21):
the practices that jeopardize and compromise people's access to energy
in a place where we don't have energy access problems.
But this is really affordability at the core.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Yeah, Jenny, what are your thoughts about that? What's the
best way forward?

Speaker 4 (58:40):
I think Diana perfectly conceptualized it, and she really did.
She typically didn't writing the last part of the book
because I think she really has conceptualized the way forward
and now we just have to mobilize around it.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Okay, all right, So we got a framework in the book,
and so before I let you go, I'll always give
our guests one last opportunity to share whatever you believe
you want us to walk away with once we turn
off this episode, So uh, dot de layered, what's the
one thing we need to walk away with after this conversation?

Speaker 4 (59:11):
Energy is a human right and we have a moral
obligation to ensure that everyone has access.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
To it better.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Hernandez, Yeah, I just want to say that from an
environmental justice perspective, energy is core to that reality.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Right.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
We sometimes want to be like labeling this justice and
that justice and whatever, but like environmental justice is social justice,
is economic justice is energy justice, and like we definitely
have to not only make connections, but also you know,
get in where you fit in because justice is a

(59:45):
set of not just principles but practices. And I think
what you really see in this work is that there
are definitely levers for change, and that, to me is
the thing that we should be going for.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Is like, how could we.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Based on your own interest and skill sets and you know,
uh gifts and talents, do something and in service of
making people more energy secure.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
All right, and we will leave it there, doctor Hernandez,
Doctor layered, thank you so much for being with us.
They have written the book Powerless The People Struggle for Energy.
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Thank you Doctor Joseph for having us and for engaging
with the work in a really meaningful and meaningful way.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
No, and thank you and thank you for the book.
It's a great book. I encourage all of you to
go out and get it. I'm assuming it wherever books
are sold. Wherever books are sold, there's a picture. So
absolutely so. This has been episode of the Environmental Justice Lab,
where we are for the people and the planet. We
will see you next time.