Senate Democrats Prioritize Ratepayers in New Energy Legislation

By Hugh McQuaid

January 21 @ 9:50 am

In response to rising energy costs burdening state residents, Senate Democrats announced plans Thursday to advance a “Ratepayers First Act,” aimed at lowering electricity prices and prioritizing the interest of Connecticut families over utility company shareholders.

Legislative leaders outlined the bill’s goals during a midday press conference in the Legislative Office Building. Sen. Norm Needleman, an Essex Democrat who co-chairs the Energy and Technology Committee, said the legislation would be designed to bring down costs and give regulators the tools to hold utilities accountable.

“Certainly the aspects of accountability and making sure that the performance that the utilities provide in exchange for an exclusive monopoly to provide us not only distribution but transmission of electricity — that is something that is very complicated,” Needleman said.

“There’s been no desire to hurt these companies, but if we have to bring them a little bit around to understanding that the way it was for their prior 20 years is not the way it’s going to be,” he said. “I think we’ve found a willing partnership with our regulators. And it’s been pretty much war ever since then. I’m not excited about that, but I’m here to fight the battle for the ratepayers.”

Needleman was joined by Senate President Martin Looney and Majority Leader Bob Duff. The leaders of the Senate’s Democratic majority said the bill was a response to warranted complaints from state residents about the cost of energy.

“It will seek to address cost, enhance the reliability of Connecticut’s power grid, increase energy production, and ensure the utilities prioritize ratepayers and recognize their responsibility as public utilities,” Looney said. “We have obviously heard many, many complaints about rates, about the volatility of rates, and we are, of course, very sensitive to that.”

Leaders of the legislature’s energy committee plan to consider a variety of ideas for reducing the energy burden on ratepayers, Needleman said. The bill is expected to be crafted by the panel and refined by feedback from members of the public and other stakeholders through the public hearing process.

“This bill is an open book,” Needleman said. “There are no specific things that we’re going to talk about at this moment. We’re going to listen to all the bills that are coming in, and they’re coming in at a rate much higher and faster than the energy committee has ever seen. We’re going to listen to ideas from across the spectrum,—that’s Republicans and Democrats, that’s cities and rural areas, that’s everybody that we can hear from.”

On Thursday, Senate Democrats discussed a number of ideas including shifting the costs of electric vehicle charging programs to transportation bonding, ensuring better accountability of public utility companies by making them subject to Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act, and increasing power supply through broader adoption of generation options like solar and nuclear power.

Duff said that any effort to acquire more supply from nuclear facilities had to be done on a regional basis.

“We’ve gone it alone too many times at high cost for our ratepayers,” he said. “By doing more on a regional basis, I think that helps to level set and helps to make sure that we are taking on the risk that we need to but not more risk than we have to.”

“We want to make sure that we provide the most reliable, best priced energy to the state of Connecticut “

“We expect from our partners in the utilities a response that is reasonable and not aggressive. The amount of money lobbying, the amount of money spent to influence everybody involved in this process is astounding.

“This bill is an open book. There are no specific things that we’re going to talk about at this moment, we’re going to listen to all the bills that are coming in and they’re coming in at a rate much higher and faster than the energy committee has ever seen. We’re going to listen to ideas from across the spectrum, that’s republicans and democrats, that’s cities and rural areas, that’s everybody that we can here from and then decide what belongs in this bill.”

“We want to strengthen the regulators and give them more options in terms of holding utilities accountable.”

“Corporate profits continue to grow, even in the face of some bad business decisions that they’ve made, where they’ve had to take write offs.”