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Keeping Warm in Winter

August 29, 2001
By: Julie Kroenig
State Capital Bureau

The chairman of Missouri's utility regulating commission warns the state is facing a potential crisis with low-income Missourians having utility services cut off this winter.

Julie Kroenig has the story from Jefferson City:

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The warning comes from Kelvin Simmons who chairs the utility regulating Public Service Commission.

The state does have law that blocks utilities from shutting off service in the winter.

But Simmons says that's only for those who have utility service before the winter starts:

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Contents: The PSC chairman says the law blocking utilities from shutting off service in the winter does not apply to those who already have their service disconnected for nonpayment.

Simmons says almost 30-thousand Missouri households do not have natural gas service now because they were shut off from nonpayment.

Those homes will not be protected by the so-called cold-weather rule this winter unless they pay off their utility bills.

I'm Julie Kroenig in Jefferson City.