Climate Colectiva is a project of Southwest Public Workers Union - Centro por la Justicia rooted in climate justice and energy democracy principles working to build community solutions for protecting our water,land and people from fossil fuel extraction and contamination. Our summer to fall campaign targets one of our biggest polluters, CPS Energy and their extractive practices on the land and people.
No Rate Hikes - No Disconnections
This Climate Colectiva campaign is intended to inform voters about changes coming to CPS Energy in the form of rate increases and starting up disconnections for non-payment. We are petitioning the city council to stop disconnections and stop the rate hikes.
Join Hundreds of San Antonio rate payers in support of halting unfair rate hikes and stopping the dangerous practice of disconnections.
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Sign the Petition (Find us out in about in San Antonio)
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Contact your San Antonio Council Member
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Share on Social Media
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Sign Up Volunteer
Why is this important?
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December of 2020, CPSE obtains a judgment without notice to prevent a citizen led petition drive to reform the utility that would place a charter amendment on the May 2021 ballot. The judgment is presently on appeal by citizens. Cost for CPS Energy’s legal action-$1M and growing as it goes to appeal in September.
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Winter Storm Uri exposes CPSE’s failure to sufficiently winterize plants resulting in the utility having to purchase natural gas on the spot market, incurring a $1 billion debt within 5 days; Austin Energy, owned by the City of Austin, profited by $54 million because they were able to promptly restore function to their plants compromised by the storm. This enabled Austin Energy to sell to the grid at the very high rates, rather than purchase from it at very high rates during the storm, as CPSE did.
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CPS wants to spend $35 million to convert Spruce Unit 2 to run on natural gas.
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The CPSE Board of Trustees continues to pay PGW nearly half a million dollars in compensation.; Base salary-$485k and in June 2019, the board approved a $444,820 bonus=$930,669. LA’s Water and Electric utility manager (largest city in US) is compensated $250k. Why are we paying a bonus out of public money to public employees?
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CPS Energy will be implementing a "provisional rate increase" this fall for San Antonio customers. CPS Energy estimates the average impact for customers over the next year ranges between $9.70 and $14.60. While the pandemic-related increase is projected to last up to five years, the increase due to the winter storm could remain in effect for up to 25 years.
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On Oct. 1, 2021 CPS Energy will begin disconnecting residential customers who are behind on their power bills and haven’t worked out payment plans with the city-owned utility, nearly one in five residential customers — about 154,000 total — have fallen at least 30 days behind on their bills. Ratepayers with past-due accounts owe more than $600 on average.
For these reasons, we must democratize our public utility and align it with our climate justice goals. Our newly elected city council has the power to reign in CPS, but we need to build a base of supporters to unite our community and demand no rate hikes and no disconnects when CPS Energy goes before city council to propose a rate increase in the fall.