With movement support, this curriculum has been taught in person with nearly 100 activists and organizers across the country. We previewed the curriculum back in May with environmental and economic justice organizers in Detroit, and this fall they rolled out their own version in a community-facing series. Other organizers produced a podcast episode with their take on the history after we worked through the curriculum together in May.

Spanning utility history, economic theory, analysis of structural racism, and practical guides to organizing for utility justice going forward, this reading list is a deeper introduction for anyone using the People’s Utility Commons curriculum or anyone who wants to learn more about utility justice in a reading group.

We have to expand public ownership of the electricity system rapidly and comprehensively. With more than one-quarter of all U.S. households currently experiencing deep energy insecurity, the requirement of private utilities to produce competitive profits for their investments is fundamentally opposed to the equally urgent tasks of resisting energy apartheid and greening our buildings and the power sector.

In current policy and investment strategy, building decarbonization is treated primarily as an appliance swapping project. This micro-approach misses the systemic nature of the reduction of natural gas demand explicit in the swap: drawing down demand is ultimately a natural gas pipeline network decommissioning project.

In December 2022, Los Angeles organizers won a multi-year fight against utility debt and for utility shutoffs within the largest public utility in the country, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which serves over 4 million households and businesses in its service territory. With this definitional change in shutoff policy, governance at the U.S.’s largest public utility provider now more closely resembles the strong protections in place for people using EDF, France’s nationwide and publicly owned and operated electric utility.

Utility shutoffs are a blunt tool that benefits utilities more than people. Creating new standards for counting them isn’t necessary and could potentially produce more harm than good. Our time will be better spent to try to ban them permanently and immediately.

Frontline activists in Los Angeles successfully won $333 million for utility debt, proving recovery funds could be used for helping people. President Biden wants to fund the police instead.