Government

Last month, at a luxury hotel near Miami, bill collectors from energy companies around the country gathered to talk shop. The three-day conference included headshot sessions and cocktail receptions sponsored by credit reporting and debt recovery agencies. During one seminar, representatives from utilities in New York spoke about how they had banded together to influence a forthcoming state policy that would limit when the energy companies can turn off customers’ power during heat waves because of unpaid bills. A day after the seminar, the new policy was announced. The utilities, worth more than $50 billion in shareholder equity last year, got most of what they wanted. But the rules, advocates said, lacked crucial protections for city dwellers, and in some cases removed existing ones. Customers in New York City “lost meaningful safeguards,” said Laurie Wheelock, the executive director of the Public Utility Law Project, known as PULP, a nonprofit that works on behalf of low-income customers.