INTRODUCTION
LIF’s consumer protection program focuses on legal advocacy on behalf of consumers in order to secure basic necessities of everyday life: home energy service, telecommunications and information service, and water service. We concentrate our work on securing gains for consumers who are low-income, immigrants and non-English speakers.

We aim to:

• Protect the gains made in Energy and Telecommunications consumer rights;
• Expand health care rights within the Department of Managed Health Care; and
• Explore water and housing rights for consumers in California.

OVERVIEW
Latinos are the largest and fastest growing consumer group in the nation, spending over $500 billion a year on goods and services. On telecommunication services, such as local long-distance, wireless and Internet services, Latinos spend an estimated $21.3 billion alone. This has prompted an increase in advertising and marketing to Latino consumers, which has led to an increase in consumer abuses, especially among immigrant and limited English speaking consumers.

Low-income consumers also pay a much higher percentage of their total household income for necessities such as home energy service, telephone service and water. For this reason, LIF strongly advocates for programs and measures that assist low-income utility consumers, as well as for program that provide community outreach and education to inform consumers about their rights and existing programs that are available to them to assist with the costs for utility services.

Much of our work is accomplished in administrative settings such as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). However, LIF also works directly with utilities to help improve their service to all consumers. Read below for a description of our work in different areas.

CURRENT WORK
Telecommunications Bill of Rights
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has been working on a Telecommunications Bill of Rights for more than five years. The Bill of Rights will regulate how telecommunications companies, including wireless companies, treat customers. Throughout the proceedings, LIF advocated for a strong Bill of Rights with rules to adequately protect consumers. Some of the policies that LIF suggested included allowing all service contracts to be cancelled without penalty during an initial 30-day period, and a requiring a written summary of key terms and conditions in the language of a consumer, where service was marketed or sold in a language other than English.

In 2004, the CPUC passed a Bill of Rights that included many rules that protected consumers. However, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Commissioners who prioritized business interests over consumers, and, under pressure from the wireless industry, the CPUC rescinded the Bill of Rights before it took effect. On March 9, 2006, over the objections of LIF and many other consumer advocates, the CPUC adopted a Bill of Rights that provided practically no new protections for telecommunications consumers.

Although the Bill of Rights adopted by the Commission was not very helpful to consumers, it did call for increased resources to Consumer Education and Enforcement, for which LIF strongly advocated. LIF will continue to advocate to ensure that the Consumer Education programs informs all consumers, including non-English speakers and immigrants, about their rights as telecommunications customers and how to assert these rights. LIF will also ensure that CPUC Enforcement is strong and that it outreaches to all populations.

**link to “LIF Comments on Telecommunications Bill of Rights” dated Feb.14.2006**

Impact of increasing energy costs for low-income families
During the fall of 2005, the CPUC held proceedings to take suggestions for helping consumers cope with anticipated high energy costs during the coming winter. LIF advocated for measures that would help those consumers who would be most impacted by the high energy costs. A few of the measures that LIF promoted that were adopted by the CPUC include:

• Increasing the eligibility guidelines for the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) low-income discount program to 200% of the federal poverty guidelines;
• Streamlining the eligibility process for consumers applying to the Low-Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) program for persons already enrolled in CARE; and
• Prohibiting shutting-off the energy service during the winter for customers who paid at least half of their total energy bills.

***link to “LIF Comments on Proposals to Help Low-Income Consumers” dated October 17, 2005

Ensuring consumers qualify for low-cost telephone service
LIF has a long-history of advocating for the design of the Universal Lifeline Telephone Service (ULTS) to provide low cost basic telephone service to all low-income customers. Therefore, when the federal government ordered the states to overhaul their administration of the ULTS program in 2005 or lose federal funding, LIF viewed the subsequent proceeding as both a challenge and an opportunity. It was a challenge because the federal government ordered the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to eliminate customer self-certification of income as a way of establishing ULTS eligibility. Customers who wanted to prove their eligibility to the ULTS program through their household income had to provide proof of their income when they applied.

LIF recognizes that it may be difficult for immigrants and others who operate in a cash economy to provide proof of their income. For this reason, LIF promoted a system where customers self-certified their income and were subject to random audits. However, now LIF had to develop another means of allowing immigrants and others to certify their eligibility to the ULTS program.

The federal government also suggested that the states improve program-based eligibility to the ULTS program, where customers show their eligibility to ULTS by demonstrating participation in a means-tested public benefit program. LIF advocated for inclusion of programs available to immigrants, such as the Women, Infants and Children program and the National Free Lunch Program, into the new ULTS program-based eligibility process. The CPUC adopted these programs, as well as other programs such as Medicaid/Medi-Cal, Food Stamps, SSI, TANF, Healthy Families Category A, Section 8, etc. as the basis of program-based eligibility to the ULTS program. LIF will continue to work to develop an effective ULTS program.

Improving Irrigation District’s Public Benefits Programs
Several irrigation districts in the Central Valley supply electricity to customers, but are not as regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) as the larger utilities. Therefore, LIF has advocated directly with irrigation districts for several years to improve their service to low-income electricity customers. LIF accomplished its work by helping set up Community Advisory Panels (CAP) to advise and assist the irrigation districts with their public benefits programs. The impact has included:

• The CAP at Modesto Irrigation District (MID) has helped MID increase the enrollment of customers eligible for the low-income discount from 9% of eligible customers in January 2002 to almost 50% currently.
• MID has also increased the amount of the discount to customers, from 20% of the bill to 22% of the usage charge and a reduction of the monthly charge from $12.50 to $5.00.
• MID has created and devoted more and more resources to a low-income weatherization program, where low-income customers can have their homes weatherized for free, which helps reduce energy use. The low-income weatherization program is targeted to have an annual budget of $200,000 by 2008.

The MID has a lot of work ahead of it, but it can serve as a model for the Turlock Irrigation District and the Merced Irrigation District, which have not achieved the same results with their public benefits programs.