Congress: Protect Access to Utilities as Human Rights!

Our outdated utility systems are catastrophically failing during fossil fuel-driven climate disasters. Our climate emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustices, deteriorated infrastructure, and deep economic inequities are endangering public health and safety.

Reps. Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman have introduced a powerful resolution to have Congress recognize and affirm the human rights to water, sanitation, electricity, heating, cooling, broadband communications, and public transportation — for the first time ever. The resolution commits to guarantee utility service for all!

Send a message now: Tell your Representative to cosponsor the resolution!

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Utilities are basic human rights, and everyone deserves access to water, sanitation, electricity, heating, cooling, broadband communications, and public transportation.

But these human rights are being denied to millions of people. Our outdated infrastructure systems have reached their breaking point. The climate crisis is colliding with structural racism and years of intentional disinvestment, creating devastation across the country.

An estimated 15 million people experience water shutoffs in a given year.  Meanwhile, one-third of households struggle to afford their electricity bills, and many have reduced or skipped purchases of prescription medicines or groceries in order to pay their energy bills. As we moved to a largely online world during the pandemic, inequities in internet access were exacerbated and lack of reliable internet made it difficult for people to attend school, access government services, or even attend their own remote eviction hearings over Zoom.

By handing control of utilities to corporations or running them like a business, the government leaves communities at the mercy of financial forces that ignore human need. Corporations are driven by maximizing profits and should not control essential services.

The solution is clear. We must return control of utilities to the public sector and guarantee access to essential utilities as rights for all.

The Human Right to Utilities resolution would set the standard for utility justice policies that promote public control, affordability, and quality services. The resolution would, among other key provisions, affirm that every person should have access to quality, affordable drinking water, electricity, and internet services and commit to ban water privatization and violent collection practices like shut-offs and tax foreclosures.

I urge you to cosponsor the House Resolution recognizing access to water, sanitation, electricity, heating, cooling, broadband communications, and public transportation as basic human rights and public services that must be accessible, safe, acceptable, sufficient, affordable, climate resilient, and reliable for every person.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]
[Your Address]