HEFPA
The Home Energy Fair Practices Act (HEFPA) is New York's utility consumer “bill of rights," adopted in 1981 to establish and consolidate in Article 2 of the Public Service Law the basic rights and remedies of New York's residential utility energy consumers. It is one of the strongest consumer protection statutes for electric and gas customers in the nation, and implements much of our State's universal service policy.
Beginning in 1996, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) approved alternative gas and electric companies that have begun to sell electric energy, natural gas, and other services to residential utility customers. Some of the new gas and electric service companies (for example, Con Edison Solutions, NYSEG Solutions, Keyspan Energy Services) are wholly owned subsidiaries of familiar large New York utilities. Some are owned by out of state utilities, while others are independent of any traditional utility company.
Without any change in the law or official HEFPA regulations, the PSC issued in 1996 the first of a series of orders allowing new gas companies it called “gas marketers" to serve residential customers without complying with HEFPA. See ``State Forgot Consumer Protections in Deregulating Gas,"
In Opinion 97-5, the PSC decided in 1997 that “energy services companies" or “ESCOs" selling electricity are not subject to the consumer protection requirements of the Home Energy Fair Practices Act, and adopted a relaxed alternative set of requirements for electricity ESCOs. In doing so, the PSC argued that State policy required only that each consumer have some supplier available to it from which the consumer could receive service under HEFPA standards. The PSC reasoned that the traditional utilities would, for the present time, still provide HEFPA compliant service to their remaining customers. The PSC approved the new companies without issuing certificates and found them eligible to serve residential customers without complying with HEFPA.
Declaratory judgment actions were brought by PULP, AARP, the Chairman of the Assembly Energy Committee, and individual residential utility consumers to obtain judicial clarification of the applicability of HEFPA to the new providers of residential electric and gas service. These actions, however, were dismissed by the state appeals courts for lack of standing, without reaching the merits of claims that the PSC had exceeded its statutory authority by allowing residential and natural gas and electric service to be provided without HEFPA protections.
In 2002, PSC effort to deregulate new energy providers was reversed when the legislature adopted the Energy Consumer Protection Act of 2002, which requires all providers to follow HEFPA in their provision of service to residential customers.
Legislative History Chapter 895, Laws of 1981
NYS Department of Public Service Chairman’s Memo In Support - 07-16-1981
NYS Department of Social Services Commissioner’s Letter & Memo in Support - 07-24-1981
Court Decisions in Rivera v. Berger, Legislatively Overruled by HEFPA - Rivera v. Berger, 89 Misc. 2d 586, 390 N.Y.S.2d 537 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Westchester Co.1976), aff’d, 60 A.D.2d 605, 399 N.Y.S.2d 1022 (N.Y. App. Div., 2d Dept. 1977), motion for leave to appeal denied, 44 N.Y.2d 642 (1978).
State DSS Memo Regarding Implementation of HEFPA -
93 ADM - 26 - 09-03-1993
Resource Information
HEFPA - Public Service Law Section 31: (Utility Service to be Provided Upon Oral or Written Application)
Public Service Commission Regulations, Part 11.3, Applications for Residential Service
Summary of Provisions Of The Home Energy Fair Practices Act (1982)
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