You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Our consolidated earnings for the second quarter of 2020 were $0.26 per diluted share, compared to $0.38 for the second quarter of 2019.
For year-to-date, consolidated earnings were $0.98 per diluted share for 2020, compared to $2.14 last year.
Now, I'll turn the discussion over to Dennis.
We hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during these uncertain times.
It's hard to believe that we've been managing through the COVID-19 pandemic for five months now.
And every day, I continue to be inspired by how our employees continue to rally on all fronts to respond to the crisis.
I couldn't be more proud of how we're staying vigilant and adapting across the organization to the new policies and procedures that can quickly change in the states where we serve.
I appreciate their patience, their persistence and professionalism, as we all navigate through these unchartered waters to seek out our new normal, all while still providing the energy that is so essential to our customers.
As always, our top priority is to preserve the health and safety of our customers, our employees, contractors and our communities.
As the regional economies across the areas we serve move forward with fits and start, we're doing our best to support those customers, who we know are struggling.
You may have seen recently the Avista Foundation provided more than $500,000 to support 37 different organizations throughout our service area.
And so far in 2020, our foundation has provided more than $1.5 million to help those in need.
Although the majority of our employees are still working from home, it hasn't impacted our ability to complete important work across our business.
Wildfires continue to be an important topic for our industry and our company, especially this time of year.
Before the wildfire season arrived, we enhanced our 10-year wildfire resiliency plan to expand our current safeguards for preventing, mitigating and reducing the impact of wildfires to help minimize the possibility of wildfires and the related service disruptions.
Our team spent the last year developing our plan through a series of internal workshops, industry research and engagement with state and local fire agencies.
The plan has certain key areas that include grid hardening, vegetation management, situational awareness, operations and emergency response and worker and public safety.
In total, we expect to spend approximately $330 million implementing the plan components over the life of the 10-year plan.
We're also excited for construction to be completed on the Catalyst Building and the Scott Morris Center for Energy Innovation.
We can hardly wait for the buildings to open next month and when they do, Scott Morris' vision to create the five smartest blocks in the world will become a reality.
Avista will be able to continue to innovate and test new ideas about how to share energy in a shared economy model.
And what we learn could not only shape how the grid of the future will operate, but also could provide a transformative new model for the entire utility industry.
Last year, we established a goal to serve our customers with a 100% clean electricity by 2045 and a 100% carbon-neutral resources by 2027.
Consistent with our goal and our 2020 Integrated Resource Plan, we are seeking proposals from renewable energy project developers, who are capable of constructing, owning and operating up to 120 average megawatts.
Our intent is to secure the output from the renewable generation resources, including energy, capacity and associated environmental attributes.
This will allow us to offset market purchases and fossil fuel thermal generation, which is a key step to achieving our goals.
With respect to results, our second quarter consolidated earnings were in line with expectations and we are on track to meet our 2020 earnings guidance at Avista Utilities, AEL&P and our other businesses.
As such, we are confirming our 2020 consolidated earnings guidance, a range of $1.75 to $1.95 per diluted share.
And finally, one last point.
Our Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, Marian Durkin, just retired on August 1.
During her tenure, Marian defined our business needs and -- to build our legal department from the ground up to the robust team that it is today.
As the focus and scrutiny on compliance has grown across many different industries, Marian also centralized the company's compliance efforts and has taken our compliance department to a new level.
Also, under Marian's leadership, earlier this year, Avista was named as one of Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies.
I have big news for you.
I'm very excited about that.
The Blackhawks, because of the pandemic, made the playoffs and we're currently 1-1 with Edmonton with a game tonight.
So, those on the East Coast, it's a 10:30 game, but I'd like you to stay up and route for my Blackhawks.
For the second quarter of 2020, Avista Utilities contributed $0.26 per diluted share, compared to $0.32 in 2019.
Compared to the second quarter of 2019, our earnings decreased due to lower electric utility margin and from higher power supply costs and decreased loads related to COVID-19, which was partially offset by rate relief and customer growth.
We also had lower operating expenses in the second quarter of 2020.
The Energy Recovery Mechanism in Washington was a small benefit in this year of $0.4 million, compared to a much larger benefit in 2019 of $6 million.
For the year-to-date, we recognized a pre-tax benefit of $5.6 million in 2020, compared to $3.5 million in 2019, all with respect to the ERM.
With respect to the COVID-19 impacts on our results, we recorded an incremental $3.3 million of bad debt expense for the year-to-date and we expect the incremental amount to be $5.7 million for the full-year, including the first quarter as -- first half, as compared to our original forecast.
In July, the Idaho Commission issued an order that allows us to defer certain costs, net of any decreased costs and other benefits related to COVID-19.
During the second quarter, we deferred $1.1 million of bad debt expense associated with this order.
Compared to normal, in the second quarter there was a -- our loads, there was a decrease of approximately 6% on overall electric loads, which consisted of approximately 10% decrease in commercial and a 14% decrease in Industrial, which was partially offset by about 4% increase in our residential loads.
These loads decreased earnings by about $0.03 in the second quarter and we expect to have continued lower loads throughout most of the year, with a gradual recovery toward the end of the year.
We expect to be able to mostly offset the lower utility margin through our cost management activities, and this is reflected in our consolidated guidance.
We do expect a gradual economic recovery, but prolonged high unemployment that will depress load and customer growth into 2021.
We have decoupling and other regulatory mechanisms, which help mitigate the impact of these load changes on our -- the impact on our revenues for residential and certain commercial customers.
Over 90% of our utility revenue is covered by regulatory mechanisms.
During the second quarter, we began experiencing some supply chain delays due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with delays ranging from a couple of weeks to up to six weeks in some cases.
However, we do not expect this to have a significant impact on our planned projects and we continue to be committed to investing the necessary capital in our utility infrastructure and expect our spending in 2020 to be still be about $405 million.
With respect to liquidity, at June 30, we had $160 million of available liquidity under our $400 million line of credit and we had $100 million in cash from our term loan.
In the second quarter, we extended our line of credit agreement a year to April 2022.
We expect to issue this year approximately $165 million of long-term debt and up to $70 million of equity, and that includes $24 million that we've issued through June.
As Dennis mentioned earlier, we are confirming our 2020 guidance, with a consolidated range of $1.75 to $1.95.
We're expecting that COVID-19 impacts at Avista Utilities of increased operating expenses include bad debt expense, reduced industrial loads and increased interest will be mostly offset by expected tax benefits from the CARES Act and other efforts to identify cost reduction opportunities that we have implemented.
We have filed for deferred accounting treatment in each of our jurisdictions.
And as I said earlier, in Idaho, the Idaho Commission issued an order that allows us to defer certain costs related to COVID-19, net of any decreased costs and other benefits.
The Idaho Commission will determine the appropriateness and prudency of any deferred expenses when we seek recovery.
We continue to expect -- to experience regulatory lag until 2023, we filed the general rate case in Oregon in March of 2020 and continue to anticipate filing in Washington and Idaho in the fourth quarter of this year.
We expect our long-term earnings growth after 2023 to be 4% to 6%.
Now, with the specifics on the ranges for each segment.
We expect Avista Utilities to contribute in the range of $1.77 to $1.89 per diluted share.
The midpoint of our range does not include any expense or benefit under the ERM and our current expectation is that we will be in a benefit of a 90/10 sharing band, which is expected to add $0.06 per diluted share.
Our outlook for Avista Utilities assumes, among other variables, normal precipitation, temperatures and hydroelectric generation for the remainder of the year and we have implemented the cost reduction measures to help mitigate the impacts of costs related to COVID-19.
For 2020, we expect AEL&P to contribute in the range of $0.07 to $0.11 per share and our outlook for AEL&P assumes, among other variables, normal precipitation and hydroelectric generation for the remainder of the year.
And we continue to expect our other businesses to have a loss of between $0.09 and $0.05 per diluted share.
Our guidance generally includes only normal operating conditions and does not include any unusual items; such as settlement transactions or acquisitions and dispositions until the effects are known and certain.
We cannot predict the duration or severity of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
And the longer and more severe economic restrictions and business disruption, the greater the impact on our operations, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

user
compname reports q2 earnings per share $0.26.
q2 earnings per share $0.26.
reaffirms fy earnings per share view $1.75 to $1.95.

assistant