House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee, February 17, 2026 Video: https://vimeo.com/1165797889 (a timestamp t plays at https://vimeo.com/1165797889#t=s) Page: https://georgiacommons.org/meetings/2026-02-17/house-energy-utilities-and-telecommunications 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. [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.