IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1478 
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, justly sourced and sustain-
able, acceptable, sufficient, affordable, climate resilient, and reliable for 
every person. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 19, 2024 
Ms. TLAIB (for herself, Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, Ms. OMAR, Mr. CARSON, Ms. 
LEE of California, Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania, Mrs. RAMIREZ, Mr. 
HUFFMAN, Ms. PRESSLEY, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Mr. JACKSON of Il-
linois, Ms. BUSH, and Mr. BOWMAN) submitted the following resolution; 
which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in 
addition to the Committees on Natural Resources, and Transportation 
and Infrastructure, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Recognizing access to water, sanitation, electricity, heating, 
cooling, broadband communications, and public transpor-
tation as basic human rights and public services that 
must be accessible, safe, justly sourced and sustainable, 
acceptable, sufficient, affordable, climate resilient, and 
reliable for every person. 
Whereas every person requires access to water, sanitation, 
electricity, heating, cooling, broadband communications, 
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and public transportation to survive and live a life with 
dignity; 
Whereas decades-old infrastructure systems, including cen-
tralized utilities, disconnected wells, septic systems, 
unpiped systems, the electric grid, and related power in-
frastructure, have reached their breaking points in safety 
and reliability in the midst of compounding crises of the 
climate emergency and fossil fuel-driven climate disasters, 
racial injustices, disinvestment in existing systems, and 
economic inequities that endanger the public’s health and 
safety; 
Whereas these crises are exacerbated by privatization of pub-
lic goods and utilities by for-profit corporations that 
prioritize earnings and shareholders over the welfare of 
people, the planet, and public health, all while readily ac-
cepting public funding from Federal infrastructure pro-
grams; 
Whereas millions of households collectively accrued more than 
$20,000,000,000 of energy utility debt by 2023, utility 
bills are growing faster than household incomes, with 
water prices increasing 56 percent from 2012 to 2023 
and becoming unaffordable for one in six households na-
tionwide, and broadband prices typically rising faster 
than the rate of inflation, and utilities have become pro-
foundly unaffordable for millions of people, causing over 
34 percent of all households to cut back on basic needs 
to pay energy bills; 
Whereas utilities are engaging in punitive residential cus-
tomer payment collection practices including mass-scale 
service shutoffs, shutting off water service to an esti-
mated 15,000,000 people in a typical year and electricity 
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service to households well over 5,700,000 times between 
2020 and 2022; 
Whereas many utilities send overdue water bills and associ-
ated late fees to tax authorities to impose liens, which 
can lead to tax sales of properties, contributing to prop-
erty foreclosures that can evict people from their homes 
and lead to bankruptcy; 
Whereas investor-owned utilities, fossil-fuel energy companies, 
and their industry associations fund and coordinate the 
obstruction of renewable energy policies and programs, 
including rooftop and community solar requirements and 
incentives; 
Whereas utilities often rely on predatory collection agencies 
to pursue payment on unaffordable bills and debts that 
damage credit scores and cause long-term harm to house-
holds’ ability to access affordable credit; 
Whereas utility shutoffs and unaffordable bills have led to in-
creasing numbers of vulnerable people dying from uncon-
trollable household temperatures and inaccessible water 
and sanitation after being denied access to utility serv-
ices, thus posing substantial threats to general public and 
community health, as exemplified in a paper from Duke 
University researchers that found a nationwide utility 
shutoff moratorium could have prevented 15 percent of 
COVID–19 deaths in 2020, with similar findings in a 
published study from Cornell University; 
Whereas disconnection from water, sanitation, electricity, 
heating, cooling, and broadband services increases hous-
ing and utility insecurity and exposure to eviction, home-
lessness, and resulting incarceration because of the crim-
inalization of being unhoused; 
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Whereas disconnection from water, sanitation, electricity, 
heating, and cooling can expose families to State-enforced 
separation due to conditioning parental or guardian’s 
ability to care for minor children or incapacitated adults 
on ensuring access to these essential services while, con-
tradictorily, still allowing these services to be discon-
nected from people living in poverty; 
Whereas the United States is the largest historical contrib-
utor to global greenhouse gas pollution, responsible for 
approximately 25 percent of cumulative carbon dioxide 
emissions since 1870, which is accelerating climate disas-
ters and destabilizing ecosystems; 
Whereas the climate emergency is causing widespread harm 
and acts as a multiplier of harmful exposures, and it has 
already begun to generate more intense storms, sea level 
rise and extreme weather events that place greater de-
mand on and cause significant harm to the aging infra-
structure, including overloading outdated stormwater and 
wastewater systems and threatening public health 
through flooding, sewage backups into homes, and sewage 
spills into public spaces, which disproportionately impact 
places where Black, Brown, and Indigenous people live, 
particularly among low-income communities and other 
groups who are economically vulnerable; 
Whereas aging drinking water and wastewater systems need 
at least $1,279,000,000,000 in improvements over the 
next 20 years to comply with existing Federal water qual-
ity regulations, according to the latest needs assessments 
from the Environmental Protection Agency; 
Whereas 2023 was the hottest year on record and the need 
for cooling, air filtration, and public water fountains and 
refill stations will continue to increase as a result of the 
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climate emergency, accelerating the need to assist vulner-
able people during heat waves, drought, extreme wildfire, 
and other heat- and air-quality-related emergencies; 
Whereas environmental justice communities experience dis-
parate and cumulative health impacts from climate 
change, air pollution, soil contamination, unsafe drinking 
water sources (including lead service lines and contami-
nated water supplies), and inadequate sanitation systems; 
Whereas fossil-fuel energy primarily delivered by centralized 
utilities is driving the climate crisis and pollution; 
Whereas the climate emergency poses a substantial threat to 
critical utility infrastructure and broadband communica-
tions networks vital to connectivity during times of emer-
gency and rebuilding; 
Whereas increased electricity rates and dirty electricity 
sources have disproportionately impacted communities of 
color; 
Whereas the United States has joined a global pledge to tran-
sition away from fossil fuels and triple renewable energy 
and double energy efficiency by 2030; and 
Whereas clean, renewable energy, distributed power, energy 
efficiency, and battery storage present nonpolluting, af-
fordable, climate-resilient energy and opportunities for 
energy democracy: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes access to water, sanitation, elec-
tricity, heating, cooling, broadband communications, 
and public transportation as basic human rights and 
public services that must be accessible, safe, justly 
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sourced and sustainable, acceptable, sufficient, af-
fordable, climate resilient, and reliable for every per-
son; 
(2) affirms that access to utility services should 
be guaranteed for all people and should not be de-
nied to any person based on ability to pay, housing 
status, immigration status, race, ethnicity, religion, 
age, 
gender, 
sexual 
orientation 
or 
identity, 
(dis)ability, employment status, credit history, or in-
carceration status or history, and affirms that all 
agencies must enforce antidiscrimination language in 
existing laws and ensure language access through 
translation and interpretation to provide adequate 
communication with people in the language they 
speak at home; 
(3) affirms that utilities should be held under 
public control, with equitable and transparent asset- 
management planning systems with policy-setting 
public involvement and intentional community en-
gagement, based on the public interest and seeking 
to repair legacies of harm and pollution in environ-
mental justice communities; 
(4) calls for a full ban on water privatization 
and supports ending privatization contracts and 
franchises and municipalizing privatized systems; 
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(5) commits to the elimination of Federal fund-
ing and subsidies for private water corporations; 
(6) commits to the development and expansion 
of accountable Federal public power providers and 
Federal support for municipalities, cooperatives, and 
communities to produce, procure, and deliver clean, 
renewable energy, storage, and energy efficiency, 
and meaningful public accountability over any re-
maining private utilities to deliver the same package 
of climate-resilient energy; 
(7) calls for public municipalities, cooperatives, 
and smaller broadband providers to explore public 
ownership options and other means to provide bet-
ter, more equitable, and affordable choices than in-
cumbent for-profit companies alone provide; 
(8) affirms that utility services must be afford-
able for every person based on their ability to pay; 
(9) calls for all public utility commissions to 
create processes to grant policy-setting powers to 
community-based organizations representing the 
most vulnerable populations within the utility service 
area, and to require racial and economic equity im-
pact assessments to determine project prioritization; 
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(10) commits to a full ban on all punitive col-
lection practices for unpaid household utility bills in-
cluding— 
(A) disconnections of water, wastewater, 
stormwater, electricity, heating, cooling, and 
broadband service; 
(B) the use of property or tax foreclosures 
or evictions; 
(C) the sale of any uncollected household 
debt to collection agencies; and 
(D) the filing of an adverse report with a 
credit-reporting agency; 
(11) commits to provide and prioritize direct 
payments to environmental justice and impacted 
frontline communities for water, sanitation, distrib-
uted solar, and broadband projects; 
(12) commits to eliminate policies that crim-
inalize a person’s inability to afford utility services, 
including unauthorized utility reconnections and a 
person’s inability to improve home septic systems 
and other utility infrastructure; 
(13) commits to provide utility access to 
unhoused people for a basic level of service for the 
public good, including water for drinking, bathing, 
and sanitation, shelter from inclement weather, wild-
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fire, floods, and extreme temperatures, access to 
public transportation, and access to internet commu-
nication; 
(14) affirms that utility services should be safe 
for all people, providing high-quality drinking water 
free 
from 
lead, 
arsenic, 
perfluoroalkyl 
and 
polyfluoroalkyl substances, and other contaminants, 
safe heating and cooling sources that do not rely on 
fuel oil, propane, or dangerous methane gas, and 
safe situating of lines and infrastructure that pro-
tects workers and communities; 
(15) affirms that policies facilitating the 
commodification and financialization of water re-
sources, services, and systems such as private water 
bottling, interbasin diversions, and water futures 
trading should be banned; 
(16) recognizes that, while short-term water ac-
cess must be maintained in instances of public 
health risk, including through the distribution of 
prepackaged water, such a project is neither a long- 
term or sustainable solution to infrastructure-related 
public health crises; 
(17) commits to direct Federal grants to sup-
port capital improvements and operations, including 
the compensation packages necessary to attract and 
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retain a qualified unionized workforce, forgive out-
standing municipal utility debt and household utility 
bill debt, and otherwise scale up the capacity of pub-
licly-controlled utility services such as drinking 
water, wastewater, and stormwater systems; 
(18) commits to requiring climate adaptation 
planning to reduce risk and cost burden on tax-
payers and climate-resilient utility solutions, includ-
ing— 
(A) enhanced clean, renewable energy and 
energy efficiency technologies (including rooftop 
and community solar, storage, microgrids, 
weatherization technologies, heat pumps, and 
other efficient cooling and heating tech-
nologies); and 
(B) updated indoor air-quality standards 
and expanded water conservation measures (in-
cluding green infrastructure and stormwater 
management); 
(19) affirms that investments in new and exist-
ing infrastructure should prioritize local, responsibly 
sourced, and clean, renewable energy while divesting 
from all global extractive and fossil-fuel processes 
that harm local communities, economies, and cul-
tures in the United States, in the Global South, and 
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across Tribal communities, which disproportionately 
bear the climate burdens and consequences of ex-
tractive capitalism of Western nations; 
(20) commits to provide direct grant invest-
ments in environmental justice and frontline commu-
nities that have been historically burdened to in-
crease the availability, affordability, safety, reli-
ability, and accessibility of electricity, broadband, 
water, wastewater, stormwater, sanitation, heating, 
and cooling needs, while supporting high-quality, 
family-sustaining union jobs and requiring commu-
nity benefit agreements and local hiring and job 
training for residents in affected communities, 
project labor agreements, labor peace agreements, 
and living wages; 
(21) commits to upholding Tribal treaties for 
self-governance and self-determination; 
(22) commits to creating a Federal database 
that requires utilities to standardize regularly issued 
reports for water quality, noncompliance events, dis-
ruptions, disconnections, and includes data on length 
of disconnections, amount of arrearages, demo-
graphics, and income levels of affected communities; 
and 
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(23) commits to establishing an interagency 
task force composed of relevant experts to develop 
and submit to Congress, and publish publicly, a 
plan, including timelines, for implementation of the 
activities committed to under paragraphs (5), (6), 
(10), (11), (12), (13), (17), (18), (20), (21), and 
(22). 
Æ 
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