Brown Endorses Winslow Power Outage Rebate Bill

Statement

U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has endorsed a bill introduced by Massachusetts State Representative Dan Winslow (R-Norfolk) that would require utility companies to provide a refund for customers who have been without power for over eight hours.

"Like most of my neighbors, I find it unacceptable that hundreds of thousands of people in Massachusetts remained without power so long after Saturday's storm. The inadequate response from the utilities raises serious questions about their storm preparations and whether they had enough assets in place to deal with the problem as it was occurring. What's at the heart of this issue is safety. We had power out in homes with young children, and seniors living alone, with temperatures dropping to freezing at night," said Senator Brown. "We need to put in place financial penalties for the utilities so they will allocate sufficient resources to preventing a recurrence of the problem."

"We need to make sure the residents of Massachusetts are being taken care of and the utility companies are held accountable to fix the problem in a timely manner," said Rep. Dan Winslow.

Background

Rep. Winslow's legislation, currently before the Massachusetts House of Representatives, would require electric utilities provide a rebate for customers who have been without power for more than eight hours. The rebate would be worth two days of their average electricity bill for each day they are without power.

Source