Group fighting for utility customers faces shutdown

A watchdog group that has gone to bat for low-income utility customers around the state to prevent service shutdowns and push for lower rates is itself in danger of being shut down because of budget cuts.

The Public Utility Law Project, a 29-year-old group based in Albany, saw its state funding vanish in April, and fail to be renewed in the recently passed 2010-11 budget.

Gerald Norlander, the group's director, was forced to lay off the group's three attorneys, one accountant and administrative assistant months ago. It has stopped taking new cases, but Norlander is handling some existing cases without a salary.

On Wednesday, he is traveling to the Bronx to fight the case of a woman evicted from her apartment after the group, known as PULP, won an electric shut-off case for her months ago.In 2007, PULP helped negotiate terms of a program that led the former KeySpan to offer discounted natural gas service to low-income customers on Long Island and New York City. (It has advocated for similar programs at ConEd, upstate gas providers, and for telephone service providers). Some 8,000 customers on Long Island benefit from the program, which is available to as many as 30,000 here and 60,000 in the city.

PULP for years has been the go-to agency for hundreds of customers around the state, and at least two dozen annually from Long Island, seeking to stop power, phone or gas utilities from shutting down service. It sends lawyers to fight the cases in court, if need be.

In 2009, LIPA cut off the juice to 20,834 customers for nonpayment.For most of its history, PULP's annual budget of $540,000 came from legislation or so-called member item support.

Norlander said the group survived opposition from the administration of former Gov. George Pataki by winning support of either the Assembly or the SenateBut Paterson spokesman Erik Kriss said PULP's funding was a victim of the budget deficit. "We can't afford to keep funding everything we funded in the past," Kriss said in a statement.

People who have worked with PULP expressed shock.

"It's a terrible, terrible loss," said Thomas Maligno, Executive director of the public advocacy center at Touro Law School. "They were the only ones who did this work for poor people and consumers, and they were some of the few people who actually understood the issues Much of this law is complex.."