New Report: Massive Energy Burden Disparities Between St. Louis City & County

Report accompanies interactive online tool
Contact

Edward Smith, edward.smith@sierraclub.org

St. Louis, Mo – The St. Louis Energy Burden Report, released today, identifies massive energy burden disparities in – and between – St. Louis City and County, as well as 10 recommendations for Ameren Missouri, Spire, elected officials, and civic institutions to help alleviate that burden. The report focuses on people impacted by high energy burden, which is a household that spends six percent or more of their combined income on electric and gas utilities. 

The report was released alongside the interactive Missouri Energy Burden Explorer tool, which combines real utility data and modeled census data to calculate energy burden. The online tool provides health, race, education, and age data alongside energy burden data by census tract.  

“Additional support is absolutely necessary, and existing programs that Ameren and Spire administer must be improved while community action agencies need more resources to help reach struggling families,” said Sandra Padgett, Executive Director with Consumers Council of Missouri. 

Utility disconnections are a common reason for the eviction of families from rental properties, and more local utility customers are behind on their bills now than before the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds of the households impacted by high energy burden live in St. Louis City while a little more than one-third live in the County, even though the County has nearly three times as many households compared to the City. St. Louis City has 23 census tracts (22%) with an average energy burden above 6% while St. Louis County has 6 census tracts (2%) with high energy burden. Approximately 16,000 Black households experience high energy burden in St. Louis City. 

“These disparities cause massive problems for families who are regularly faced with a decision to avoid disconnection by paying their utility bill and choices between paying for food, rent, medication, transportation, or whatever else they may need to survive,” said Jacqueline Hutchinson, Director of Advocacy of the Consumers Council of Missouri.  

Recommendations in the report include that local monopoly utilities, like Ameren Missouri and Spire, should create targeted awareness campaigns for census tracts with high energy burden, increase funding and eligibility requirements for existing programs, and transition to clean energy, including community solar. Policy changes include municipal ordinances that require rental energy disclosures and changes to state law that enable utilities to provide billing discounts for low-income households, which is allowed in states like Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. The end of the report includes a full list of recommendations and existing resources for people impacted by energy burden. 

“Receiving utility data at the census tract level, based on previous rate case settlements, was critically important to enable the report and tool we released today,” said Jenn DeRose, Senior Organizer with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Missouri. “Utility regulators must change their position and require this critical reporting by monopoly utilities, but until then, there’s absolutely nothing stopping Ameren or Spire from reporting this data publicly.” 

The report organizers will continue their socialization of the report with a community stakeholder meeting on Monday, February 3rd, at 2:00PM. Anyone is welcome to attend, including low-income service providers, households behind on their utility bills, policymakers, and beyond. People are welcome to register here.  

“We really need utilities to focus their engagement and resources in the high energy burden areas because that’s where the need is the greatest,” said Tori Cheatham, St. Louis Regional Director with Renew Missouri. “We look forward to socializing this report with community partners starting next week and growing awareness and implementation of our recommendations.” 

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.