House lawmakers have answered the question of how cold is too cold for utilities in South Carolina to cut service, and their vision for new rules governing winter disconnections last week passed on to the Senate.

One of the central issues senators will now deal with -- and differ on -- is the temperature at which electric and gas utilities would be prohibited from cutting power for not only the elderly, disabled and poor whom the proposed laws seek to protect, but also for anyone else who doesn't pay their heating bill.

The methods to determine the temperature threshold is specific and subtle, but the difference has a noticeable impact on who sleeps in a frigid house during the coldest months.

For instance, The Greenville News found that if it got as cold this weekend as it did during last month's devastating ice storm -- when thousands of Upstate residents learned what it's like to suffer for days without power -- the House's proposed regulations wouldn't have triggered cutoff protection.

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Also a point of debate, legislators say, will be how to protect infants from the cold household temperatures that medical professionals say leaves them just as susceptible to hypothermia as the 89-year-old Greenville widow who froze to death in her home last winter when Duke Power cut her service for nonpayment.

South Carolina lawmakers say Elizabeth Verdin's death has made them committed to protecting other residents from losing utility service -- and some are concerned whether the proposed regulations go far enough.

The issue of temperature thresholds and whether small children should fall under the proposed protections for "special needs" customers will be examined when the Senate begins its deliberation in the coming weeks, state Sen. David Thomas, R-Fountain Inn, said Friday.

"We're going to, in the Senate, take a whole new, very serious, very careful look at the proposal that is coming from the House," Thomas said. "I fully expect we're going to have a lot of amendments and changes from the House version."

Duke Power on Friday declined to speak directly to the proposed regulations.

"It is difficult for us to comment on specifics since it is a fluid process," spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said. "However, it is important to note that Duke Power supports the intent of the legislation and the goal of providing a uniform safety net for citizens across the state." How cold is too cold?

The House bill offers three levels of protection that are in effect from December through March.

Those who are seriously ill who enroll in a winter protection program cannot have their power or gas cut off. Special needs customers (65 or older and unable to pay, disabled or seriously ill) must be notified numerous times before disconnection.

The most sweeping of the three protections would prohibit utilities from disconnecting service whenever the absolute low temperature during a 24-hour period is forecast to drop to or below 20 degrees or if the average forecast temperature reaches 32 degrees or less over a 48-hour period.

Within the technical wording of "absolute" and "average" lies a distinction that can mean a world of difference for when gas and electricity can be disconnected.

For instance, Duke Power currently uses virtually the same temperature formula proposed by the House bill -- except the company's 2.2 million customers in the Carolinas don't have any absolute temperature provision.

During the first five days of the ice storm debacle -- when at its peak 700,000 Duke customers were without power -- no day would have been cold enough to trigger protection.

During natural disasters, Duke Power is focused on restoring power, not cutting it, spokeswoman Sheehan said. But absent such drastic conditions, Sheehan said, the same temperatures would not trigger companywide protection.

The forecast average temperatures used under Duke's policy were all above 32 degrees from Dec. 14 (the Wednesday night the storm hit) through Dec. 16, Sheehan said. Duke didn't measure temperatures the following Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 17 and 18, because the company doesn't disconnect during the weekend, she said.

On one day, Dec. 15, the average forecast temperature was 32.3 degrees -- which Sheehan said wouldn't meet the protection standard for nonpayment disconnections. Duke measures temperatures at three-hour intervals during the 48-hour period and uses each reading to determine the average, she said.

The National Weather Service simply divides the high and the low during a 24-hour period to determine the average temperature, Weather Service program manager Terry Benthall said.

A look at Weather Service records during the first five days of the ice storm shows average actual temperatures dropped twice to 32 degrees. During the same span, the actual absolute low temperatures dropped below freezing three nights -- two nights into the upper 20s -- although the average never dropped below freezing.

In Georgia, the process is simple, said Bill Edge, spokesman for the Georgia Public Service Commission. Georgia law prohibits electric disconnections whenever the absolute low temperature is forecast to drop to or below freezing at any point over the course of a day. Disconnection for gas service is measured over the course of three days, Edge said.

On Thursday, before the South Carolina House bill passed, Rep. Walt McCleod, D-Little Mountain, questioned whether the 20-degree threshold was too low; he suggested 33 degrees might be a better temperature.

However, Rep. Harry Cato, a Travelers Rest Republican, said the formula proposed in the bill is the best gauge to balance government regulation and personal responsibility.

"We are walking a very fine line because there are those unscrupulous people who would take advantage if we make it too broad," Cato said. Infants excluded

Infants -- even those who are healthy -- are as susceptible to cold as an elderly person, according to medical professionals.

The federal Centers for Disease Control explicitly warns that children younger than 1 year "should never sleep in a cold room because infants lose body heat more easily than adults; and unlike adults, infants can't make enough body heat by shivering.

"The CDC also warns that parents who try to cover infants with too many blankets or to share body heat with their infant children by putting them in the bed with them run a greater risk of their infants suffering sudden infant death syndrome."

Sleeping in cold homes also can lead infants to suffer in terms of development and to become more susceptible to colds and flu, according to Dr. Perry Earle, a pediatrician at the Greenville Hospital System's Children's Clinic.

The House's proposal includes the elderly and the sick as "special needs" customers, but infants are excluded.

Part of the reason for that, Cato said, is because a child is under the responsibility of a parent.

"There's no specific language that addresses children," Cato said. "Our thought was that a child is in the household with an adult, and that adult is responsible for them. We focused on the adult and the one that pays the bill."

Rep. Karl Allen, a Greenville Democrat, said the bill didn't address all the issues he would have liked -- such as the child special-needs designation -- but was a chance to set regulations with the opportunity for tighter regulation in the future.