Those of us living in that somewhat less than fertile crescent of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma are dealing with a major crisis this winter – and it’s a crisis that our elected officials could be putting an end to. But they aren’t.
In the past month, the Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corporation has ramped its prices up something llike 500% in most cases. Last month, our gas bill was $35. This month, our usage was down, and the bill is up to $221. The company has been very mum on why this is, alluding only vaguely to having to compensate for financial shortfalls last winter.
They have also stopped accepting applications to join average monthly billing, and their accounting department is finding any reason whatsoever to dump existing subscribers to that program out of it; there is some word floating around about an internal e-mail memo encouraging AOG employees to seek out any irregularity that could get someone taken off of average monthly billing, because the monthly averaging program isn’t making the company any money.
They’re not even trying to be bashful about it. They’re going for the vulgar damned dollar, and they’ve made it clear that they could care less what their customers think. After all, aside from being a huge mess, it’s also a monopoly. We have no choice of natural gas providers. We’re stuck with AOG.
The public service commission in this state has no elected seats; all the people sitting on that board are political appointees. As part of the explanation for the increase – at least on paper – is taxes, and given the state government’s odd refusal to make any comment on this activity, it’s starting to seem as though our elected representatives in the state capitol are going to sit quiet and let their cut of the money roll in.
In the meantime, elderly people and others on fixed incomes are sitting by helplessly as their service is cut off, in the dead of winter. Even the assistance programs that exist for vital utilities like natural gas are gasping for air here, because they can’t absorb the costs of a lot of small three-room residences suddenly being hit with $250+ gas bills.
When you screw with people’s ability to stay warm in their own homes and cook their food, you’re screwing with – essentially – their ability to stay alive. This isn’t like cable rates. This is stuff that falls into the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy: basic, essential human needs. Opinions are growing more and more angry, suggestions are shifting from merely angry to radical, and sooner or later someone’s going to wind up doing someone else real harm over this.
All because someone got greedy.
I have to admit, normally a very patient person myself, I too am growing impatient for some kind of action here. My reaction has gone from concern to alarm to a slow-boiling rage, bubbling just beneath the surface. I can vote people out of office who refuse to take action, but election season isn’t going to roll around soon enough to bring heat back to the homes of elderly people and single mothers with kids they can already barely feed. This area’s economy is not strong enough to absorb this kind of a hit. But rest assured, when election season does roll around, it is my intention to cast my vote against anyone who is presently sitting cozy in office, benefitting from this.
Something’s got to give.
And keep in mind, the energy utilities in Arkansas, unlike those of California, are regulated.
In the meantime, where my own home is concerned, I’m already looking at replacing the gas-powered hot water heater, and since that’s coming up anyway, it’ll be replaced with an electric model. As for heating… that’s a thornier issue, but I’m determined not to give AOG any excuse to charge me so much as a single damned cent. If I have to, I’ll dress for winter inside my own four walls, and divert the money that would be going toward AOG’s exorbitant natural gas bills to buying an electric central heating unit. It’s my intention to be all-electric by summer – and for what it’s worth, even in the summertime, my electric bill barely scratches half of the amount of this month’s heating bill.
But beyond this, we need change in the state government to ensure that nothing like this happens again. Some changes that desperately need to be made:
The Public Utilities Commission should be an elected body, answerable to the public – not an appointed one which can be bribed by the utilities or their lobbying interests. The utter inaction of Arkansas’s PUC in this instance is beyond disgraceful, but as it is, the public cannot do anything about it. This must change.
The utilities have the right to make a buck, but not to gouge us. Just as price-gouging laws exist for gasoline sales, they should apply to utilities as well. And caps should exist for how much certain items on one’s utility bill can cost the end user: AOG passes much of my bill’s nearly $200 increase to various taxes, a “customer charge,” exploration and exploitation fees, storage fees, and other things. Unless there are protections in place, utilities can use line items like these to collectively nickel-and-dime their customers to death, and this too must change.
The quality of customer service should factor into a company’s right to do business in the state. The behavior of AOG’s customer service employees has been – at best – shameful during this crisis. Customers have been told that they cannot dispute their charges, customers have been hung up on, customers have been told – and this is one customer’s direct quote – “Hello! Duh! It’s because it’s been colder lately.” This is inexcusable. The utilities have to remember that they have to earn the public’s trust – or the public will find an alternative, even if it means moving out of town. Treating one’s customers like this won’t earn anyone’s trust.
“You’ll never do business in this state again!” Franchises must be fluid. If a utility has been proven to be unreliable, inflexible, or even – as in AOG’s case – relentlessly exploitative, then local government must be able to act on the wishes of its constituents and transfer control of that utility to another company. Granted, this would be a last-ditch option, but unless the option exists to exercise this ultimate sanction, utility companies like AOG which are engaging in a scorched-earth burst of exploitation will feel no need to reform their practices.
On Thursday, January 31st, State Representative Jo Carson (D) called for a public forum at the recently rechristened University Of Arkansas – Fort Smith, inviting both the public and AOG’s reps to come and have their fair say. AOG sent a P.R. point man (who also happened to be an attorney) to speak for them, and he generously offered a ten-day extension to anyone who calls in requesting it. But at that time, he said, all bills were due in full.
Brave man, that one, to walk into an impoverished area where heating bills have jumped up 500% or more and offer ten days to come up with hundreds of dollars that most of these people’s credit ratings won’t allow them to come up with at all. Word has it that AOG balked at the last minute on sending him at all unless the city provided police protection for him.
The people, in the meantime, had their say. One by one, stepping up to the microphone. The ones who didn’t make it to the microphone cheered on those who were speaking. 600+ strong, overflowing the fire marshal-determined capacity for the lecture hall at the Gardner Building and streaming out into the decidedly unheated evening air outside the building, trying to hear what was being said inside.
At one point, Carson tried to tactfully raise a point about AOG’s phone bank. “Mike,” she said to Callan, “one thing I’ve heard a lot of complaints about is that your customer service…”
She paused to find a way to put it within the constraints of decorum for a public official. The crowd, however, saved her the trouble with a hearty, unified shout of “…SUCKS!!!”
Sometimes, not only does democracy work, but it’s damned funny when it does.
Some of the stories were heartbreaking. A local church was hit with a bill triple what it normally pays per month – not bad by the standards of some customers’ increases, until you realize that this meant a $3,200 gas bill that their monthly budget couldn’t meet. Another customer, this time at a private residence, waved a bill of nearly $800 in the air. The elderly and their families were there in force, complaining about the unjust bills and the unjust handling of the customers with those bills, when these people have more than paid their dues – at least by the reckoning of most people.
But no answers were forthcoming other than an Orwell-worthy doublespeak explanation involving costs-per-unit, supply and demand, storage fees, and so on. People with knowledge and experience of these things were present, looked at the flyers, and said what everyone had been thinking: it makes no sense.
Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corporation’s recent treatment of its natural gas customers in western Arkansas is admittedly an extreme case, almost a worst-case scenario – but if the people don’t get some power to wield in this matter, and soon, we’ll be looking at another worst-case scenario, one that won’t make anyone look good. It doesn’t help that the silence from Fort Smith’s city hall, our Congressional representatives’ offices, and the seat of government in Little Rock has been deafening.
Because when you screw with people’s basic needs so blatantly, they tend to fight back. And they tend not to hold their punches when doing so. If someone dies of pneumonia because their heat was shut off after non-payment of a ridiculously high bill, no words, no amount of apology will save AOG from whatever payback anyone has in mind for them then.
It’ll go beyond non-payment of the gas bill.
Is the board of directors’ greed worth that?
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