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The Connecticut State Capitol, in Hartford, Conn. Jan 24, 2023.
Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media
Some utility legal fees, executive pay hikes, lobbying efforts and charitable contributions would be prohibited from inclusion in utility rate increases, under a wide-ranging bill aimed at cutting consumer costs approved Tuesday in the General Assembly's Energy & Technology Committee.
The legislation, which contains two dozen sections, next heads to the state Senate, would also allow state regulators to consider the state's consumers, economy and inflation when considering future rate hikes; strengthen the ability of the Public Utility Regulatory Authority's to require more-rigorous rate hearings; and that customers get more consideration.
State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, co-chairman of the committee, called it "a very significant regulatory enhancement bill" that follows up on the so-called Take Back Our Grid bill of 2020, but which will be amended further as the legislature heads toward its June 8 adjournment. "We are hoping at the end of this we add some tools to the toolbox for our regulatory authority," Needleman said.
"We're in the process of fulfilling our obligation to hold the utilities accountable," said Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Wesport, co-chairman of the committee. "We have worked very collaboratively with PURA to understand where there are opportunities to do so. Ultimately, it may take some time and it may not be huge, but we expect this to have a positive impact on rates. We're reducing factors that actually have led to increases in rates over the years. We've done a deep dive on this."
"Hopefully the final product will be a product of a lot of consideration from people across this committee and across the General Assembly with a few different goals in mind," said Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich, a top Republican on the panel. "The first goal being that we have strong oversight of the utilities on behalf of consumers across Connecticut."
If enacted, Fazio predicted that the effect on rates would likely be marginal, but more-reliability of the electric grid could also result. But further rewriting of the bill is necessary and more compromise is needed, he said. While Fazio and Rep. Bill Buckbee, R-New Milford, the other top GOP member of the committee, both voted for the bill, other Republican lawmakers, including veterans Reps. Holly Cheeseman of East Lyme and Charles Ferraro of West Haven, voted against it.
"I want to be a strong supporter of this bill, once I know that it does exactly what it is that we say it's going to do," said Ferraro, who stressed that he needed more information."
"There's a lot to dissect and go through with this bill and a lot that is left for us to take a look at as we go, as well," Buckbee said. "I have it on the good faith of the chairs that we want to work on making this a bipartisan piece as much as we possibly can. I think that the people of the state have come to us enough and said enough is enough and looking at the dollars that they are spending and the return on investment is a concern for them."
Electric rates this year have soared and resulted in complaints from consumers.
State Rep. Mary Mushinsky, a Wallingford Democrat, said her community has avoided the sharp increases in electric costs because of the local municipally owned utility. "Our utility buys electricity five years in advance, and as I understand it, Eversource and the other investor-owned utilities buy six months or a short period in advance, and so they are subject to and your constituents are subject to much-more volatile price changes because of that short-term purchasing," she said. "If there is something we could put in this bill as it moves forward to require them to purchase further out in the future, I think it will avoid the price shocks that your constituents are feeling right now."
Needleman said that a section of the current bill include looking at the issue of longer-term contracts.