Real Safety AI Foundation / Research

Disability, Accessibility, and Civil Rights

Every Sixty Days: The Customer-Initiated Accommodation and the Disability That Cannot Initiate

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Research article.

Written
July 2026
Version
v1.0
Pages
29
Download PDFPlain language slides (PDF)Export BibTeXExport RIS

Abstract

For a large population of disabled people, electricity is not a utility service. It is the delivery medium of a legally required accommodation. An augmentative communication device is speech for a person who does not speak; an alarm is medication adherence for a person whose disability impairs prospective memory; a timer is executive function. When the power goes off, the accommodation goes off. The ventilator and the communication device are on the same circuit for the same reason, and no state disconnection rule sees the second one. This Article argues that state utility commissions have built every disability protection against disconnection on a single architecture, and that the architecture is inaccessible by reason of disability. The customer must know the protection exists, initiate the request, obtain third-party documentation, submit it inside a window, and renew it before it lapses. Those five acts describe one capacity, and that capacity is what cognitive, intellectual, and neurodevelopmental disability impairs. The regime conditions the benefit on the one thing the beneficiary cannot reliably do. Illinois supplies the worked example. Under 83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160, a licensed physician must certify that disconnection will aggravate or create a medical emergency; the certificate protects the account for sixty days; and a person whose disability is permanent must therefore obtain and submit six certifications every year, for life. If the customer certifies late, the payment arrangement demands one fourth of the arrears rather than one twelfth. The installment triples. Lateness is the impairment. Pennsylvania supplies the proof of failure: when an evaluator finally measured whether a comparable program reached the households at the bottom, the answer was that roughly eighty percent of them received unaffordable bills under the program built to make bills affordable.

Keywords

  • Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Title II
  • Section 504
  • meaningful access
  • Alexander v. Choate
  • American Council of the Blind v. Paulson
  • Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison
  • utility regulation
  • medical certification
  • disconnection
  • public utility commissions
  • energy insecurity
  • neurodevelopmental disability
  • executive function

Plain language slides

First slide of the plain language summary of Every Sixty Days: The Customer-Initiated Accommodation and the Disability That Cannot InitiateOpen the 24-slide summary (PDF)

Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "Every Sixty Days: The Customer-Initiated Accommodation and the Disability That Cannot Initiate." Real Safety AI Foundation Research Article, July 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/every-sixty-days/

Other versions

This paper is also posted on SSRN.

SSRN version

References (41)

This paper cites its sources in footnotes. Each authority is listed once, where it is first cited, with its footnote number.

  1. Footnote 1.N.C. Utils. Comm’n v. Carolina Indus. Grp. for Fair Util. Rates II, No. 75A24 (N.C. May 22, 2026) [hereinafter Carolina Indus. Grp. II].
  2. Footnote 5.Brookings Inst., Confronting and Addressing Rising Energy Bills Linked to Data Centers (Mar. 13, 2026), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/confronting-and-addressing-rising-energy-bills-linked-to-data-centers/ (last visited July 14, 2026)
  3. Footnote 5.Envtl. & Energy Study Inst., Data Center Power Demands Are Contributing to Higher Energy Bills, https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-center-power-demands-are-contributing-to-higher-energy-bills (last visited July 14, 2026).
  4. Footnote 6.469 U.S. 287 (1985).
  5. Footnote 7.419 U.S. 345 (1974).
  6. Footnote 9.28 C.F.R. 35.160(a)(1).
  7. Footnote 10.28 C.F.R. 35.160(b)(1).
  8. Footnote 11.28 C.F.R. 35.104 (definition of “auxiliary aids and services”).
  9. Footnote 14.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280 (Procedures for Gas, Electric, Water and Sanitary Sewer Utilities Governing Eligibility for Service, Deposits, Billing, Payments, Refunds and Disconnection of Service).
  10. Footnote 16.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.130(m).
  11. Footnote 17.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(a).
  12. Footnote 18.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(b).
  13. Footnote 19.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(c).
  14. Footnote 20.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(d).
  15. Footnote 21.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(g).
  16. Footnote 22.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(f).
  17. Footnote 24.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(i)(1).
  18. Footnote 25.83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.160(i)(2).
  19. Footnote 26.Ill. Com. Comm’n, Rules Applicable to Utilities, https://icc.illinois.gov/consumers/rules-applicable-to-utilities (last visited July 14, 2026).
  20. Footnote 27.The Tenant Union Representative Network v. Pa. Pub. Util. Comm’n, 318 A.3d 416 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2024).
  21. Footnote 37.Marguerite Matthews, Joel T. Nigg & Damien A. Fair, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, 16 Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences 235, 235–66 (2013) (“Executive or top-down control in ADHD has been discussed as a core dysfunction of the disorder for over a century.”).
  22. Footnote 38.Lucia Margari, Francesco Craig & Francesco Margari, A Review of Executive Function Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, 12 Neuropsychiatric Disease & Treatment 1191 (2016) (“Executive dysfunction has been shown to be a promising endophenotype in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”).
  23. Footnote 39.Anita Thapar & Miriam Cooper, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, 387 Lancet 1240, 1240–50 (2016) (“In terms of executive functioning, the most consistent and strong associations are seen for response inhibition, vigilance, working memory, and planning.”).
  24. Footnote 42.525 F.3d 1256, 1266 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
  25. Footnote 45.9 F. Supp. 3d 847 (S.D. Ohio 2014).
  26. Footnote 49.No. 2:19-cv-04283 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 11, 2020) (report and recommendation).
  27. Footnote 52.28 C.F.R. 35.130(b)(8).
  28. Footnote 53.28 C.F.R. 35.130(b)(3)(ii).
  29. Footnote 55.28 C.F.R. 35.130(f).
  30. Footnote 56.No. 1:26-cv-02341 (S.D.N.Y. June 12, 2026).
  31. Footnote 60.No. 2:26-cv-02311 (D.N.J. Apr. 22, 2026).
  32. Footnote 63.28 C.F.R. 35.130(b)(6).
  33. Footnote 67.Hill, No. 2:26-cv-02311.
  34. Footnote 70.42 U.S.C. 12131(1)(B).
  35. Footnote 72.28 C.F.R. 35.130(b)(1)(v).
  36. Footnote 73.28 C.F.R. 35.130(b)(3)(iii).
  37. Footnote 75.Carolina Indus. Grp. II, No. 75A24 (quoting the Commission’s order).
  38. Footnote 78.N.C.G.S. 62-94(b)(5), (6) (2025), as quoted in Carolina Indus. Grp. II, No. 75A24.
  39. Footnote 79.N.C.G.S. 62-79(a)(1), as quoted in Carolina Indus. Grp. II, No. 75A24.
  40. Footnote 80.Carolina Indus. Grp. II, No. 75A24 (quoting State ex rel. Utils. Comm’n v. Morgan, 277 N.C. 255, 267 (1970), and State ex rel. Utils. Comm’n v. Va. Elec. & Power Co., 381 N.C. 499, 515 (2022)).
  41. Footnote 86.Newkirk, No. 2:19-cv-04283.

All research