New income guidelines take effect June 1, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO, June 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Thousands more low- and fixed-income Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers can now receive a 20 percent discount on their monthly energy bill, thanks to recent adjustments in the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) Program. CARE provides an average annual discount of over $500 per eligible household. Since 1989, CARE has provided over $2.6 billion in customer discounts. Currently there are 1,120,874 customers throughout PG&E's service area enrolled in CARE, representing 73% of the total who are estimated to be eligible. There are still more than 400,000 households in northern and central California who are financially eligible for CARE, but not yet enrolled. "Hundreds of thousands of customers who qualify for this discount are not yet aware of it," said Linda Fontes, PG&E's CARE Program supervisor. "To make sure that we reach as many of them as possible, we have partnered with 74 community-based organizations from Bakersfield to the Oregon border." Every year, the CPUC adjusts the maximum qualifying income levels to reflect changes in the federal poverty guidelines. As a result, more customers can now qualify. The new income guidelines based on pre-tax annual income are as follows: Number of People Qualifying Income Levels Per Household (Effective June 1, 2008- May 31, 2009) 1 or 2 $30,500 3 $35,800 4 $43,200 5 $50,600 6 $58,000 Add $7,400 for each additional household member. Applying for the CARE Program is easy. Every non-CARE residential customer will find a CARE application included in their June bill package. Customers can also call the multilingual toll-free line 1-866-PGE-CARE or enroll online at http://www.pge.com/care. Once the application has been approved, the CARE discount will take effect after the completion of a full billing cycle. Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation, is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to 15 million people in northern and central California. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com/about/. DATASOURCE: Pacific Gas and Electric Company CONTACT: News Department of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, +1-415-973-5930 Web site: http://www.pge.com/

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