Secretary of State Matt Brown has sent a letter to the state Energy Office asking it to compile and make public individual heating oil companies’ retail prices weekly. Brown is offering to assist with this initiative by posting the information on the Secretary of State’s website.
“As temperatures drop and oil prices rise, Rhode Islanders are having a hard time affording their heating oil,” Brown said in a news release. “I believe we need to do everything we can to help Rhode Islanders keep their homes heated. Making price information available will help Rhode Islanders find the most affordable heating oil.”
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Brown said his request to the Energy Office is in keeping with the office’s mission to “maintain a healthy economy, foster economic development and ensure the health, safety and welfare of the people of Rhode Island.”
The Energy Office has said that the information it collects currently cannot be released to the public because of confidentiality agreements between the office and oil companies, according to Brown. But the secretary of state said the information is available to any citizen willing to call the hundreds of individual companies, and the office should “live up to its mission and ask the companies to provide this information for publication, taking this onerous burden off of consumers.”
The State Energy Office was created by executive order in 1975 at the height of the decade’s energy crisis. Former Governor Philip W. Noel empowered the office to participate with other governmental or private agencies to form new energy policies. This participation included gathering data needed to meet “the state’s present and future energy demands.”
Brown noted that there are a number of community groups working to help people in need of emergency assistance to pay their home heating bills. He said that putting retail price information for heating oil online will assist Rhode Islanders who are struggling to cope with the rising cost of energy.
