“There cannot be environmental justice without people in the community, grassroots organizations, people at the forefront, making those decisions. We’ve laid out what we need,” said Huertas. The clearest call from those fighting for utility justice in Rhode Island is a Percentage Income Payment Plan, or PIPP.  This program would cap the proportion of a household’s income that can be spent on utilities between 4 and 6 percent. This is crucial to stopping “low-income folks [from] paying disproportionate rates,” Viveiros explained.

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