Georgia CommonsHouse Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee
House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee, February 17, 2026
2025-2026 Regular Session · 403 CAP · 19 min
This is a machine transcript of the General Assembly's video, made by a speech-recognition model. It is not an official record and can mishear words, names, and numbers. Speakers are not identified. The video is the record: every timestamp links to the moment it plays.
The video is the General Assembly's, played from its Vimeo channel. Select any time below to play that moment. Watch on the General Assembly's Vimeo channel · Agenda
Summary
Written by an AI model (gpt-6.1-sol) from the transcript. It is not part of the record, and the video is what was said.
The committee considered a substitute for HB 641 requiring residential electric suppliers to have written policies addressing serious life-threatening conditions and provide them on request beginning January 1, 2027. The sponsor said the substitute would let utilities set their own policies rather than prescribe specific protections. A committee member and a witness for Electric Cities of Georgia supported the approach. The committee approved a motion on the bill by voice vote, although the motion's exact wording was not stated.
Bills discussed (1)
Each account covers the stretch of the meeting it names. The bill's number is said in that stretch, unless it was the only bill on a committee's agenda.
HB 641. Public utilities; require electric supplier to hold the proposed discontinuation of electrical service to a residential customer who suffers from a serious illness in abeyance for a certain period of time
From 0:15:06 · turns 5 to 25
The sponsor presented a shortened substitute requiring electric suppliers serving residential customers to adopt written policies addressing serious life-threatening conditions beginning January 1, 2027, and provide those policies to current or potential customers on request. The sponsor said these requirements would have helped a customer whose experience prompted the proposal, while leaving utilities free to determine their policies' contents. A committee member said having policies in place would be beneficial. The sponsor said prior testimony indicated most utilities already had such policies, so the substitute should not be burdensome, and thanked Electric Cities of Georgia and electric membership cooperatives for working on it. A witness for Electric Cities of Georgia supported the substitute, saying it would allow local communities familiar with their customers to set policies suited to their circumstances. No substantive questions or opposition were voiced. After a motion and second, the chair declared the motion passed by voice vote. The motion's exact wording was not stated.
Transcript
27 turns. Select a time to play that moment of the video.
- 0:11:20
Can you hear me all right? Nope, we won't hear myself.
- 0:11:22
Yep, we're good.
- 0:11:23
We're good?
- 0:11:23
Thank you.
- 0:14:40
Hello, everybody. We have enough for a quorum, so we're gonna go ahead and, uh, get the meeting start- started. We only have one bill today, so it should be a short and sweet meeting. And where is Representative Lim? Martin, you can go ahead and come up and present your bill.
- 0:15:03
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm back with HB 641 with a substitute. It's LC56091S. We took, uh, the original and, and, and stripped it down to the essentials. As you can see here, it is four lines. It says, "Beginning on January 1st, 2027, any electric supplier that serves residential consumers shall have a, a written policy in place addressing specifically, um, serious life-threatening conditions," such as Ms. Marson, who's back here today, "and then two, shall furnish such written policy upon request by a consumer or a potential consumer." Both of those would have helped in, in Ms.
- 0:15:42
Marson's case, as the other cases that we've heard while still allowing, uh, utilities, whether that's EMCs, MEAGs, uh, to set their own policy. So this is the, the floor that, that we've settled on, which is to have a policy and be able to provide it.
- 0:15:59
Thank you. Uh, we didn't do a sign-up sheet, but if there's, there's any questions on the, uh, committee, or if there's anyone in the audience who'd like to, uh, make a comment. I think it's pretty straightforward today. All right. Go ahead.
- 0:16:14
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, thank you so much, Representative Lim, for your willingness to work on this. Um, I think it would be very beneficial moving forward for all of the utilities to have a policy in place, so I, I appreciate your hard work on this.
- 0:16:28
Yes. And, uh, one thing I'll add. Thank you, Chairman Camp. I appreciate, um, Electric Cities, EMCs coming to the table, and as we heard in the testimony last week, and I'll repeat, most of them have these policies already, so it should not be a, a burden, especially since under this version, we're not mandating any particular policy. And I appreciate, um, their willingness to, to, to continue, uh, uh, advocating with their, their members to set the best possible versions that they can of their own policies.
- 0:17:05
Thank you very much, Mr. Representative. I don't have any more questions, and no one seems to wanna talk, and, but it's a... Oh, Mr. Ingram.
- 0:17:14
Uh, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
- 0:17:15
Go, go, go to a microphone.
- 0:17:20
State of Georgia.
- 0:17:21
State of Georgia.
- 0:17:23
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Darryl Ingram of the Electric Cities of Georgia. Um, uh, apologize that we were not here at the last meeting. Uh, we were not prepared to provide testimony. We, we've done a, uh, res- our research since then. We've spoken with, uh, Representative Lim and many of the other, uh, representatives on the committee, uh, about the bill. Uh, and the substitute, we think, is a good policy that, um, that allows the local communities that are closer to their customers and know their customers to be able to set policy and direction, uh, as, as, uh, as it seems to work well with that c- that particular community.
- 0:18:00
And happy to answer any questions you may have.
- 0:18:07
Representative Martin.
- 0:18:09
Jordan, sorry.
- 0:18:10
Oh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the proper time, I'd like to make a motion.
- 0:18:17
Thank you.
- 0:18:17
Good. Thank you, everyone. Uh, I believe that is this time.
- 0:18:22
And we have a second. Ladies and gentlemen, this will be a very short meeting then. We don't know of issues until we hear of, um... Sorry, we don't hear of issues until, you know, people come to us, and like Representative, uh, Lim has done, and we work together, so, so we've got a motion and a second. All those in favor?
- 0:18:42
Aye.
- 0:18:42
Aye. Motion passes, and we're good to go.
- 0:18:45
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
- 0:18:46
Shortly, guys. Thank y'all.