CT energy bill snarled by debate on consumer savings and regulatory power. What that means for you.

Yahoo

3 days ago

Energy legislation intended to cut consumer electric bills was stalled again Monday by ongoing disagreement over how much power the state's chief utility regulator would be allowed to wield.
And as the debate over regulatory power dragged through another day, the savings consumers were promised they could find in their electric bills continued to shrink.
Agreement on both power and savings remained elusive Monday evening as legislators continued to debate both questions while racing toward the General Assembly's Wednesday adjournment deadline.
But it appeared legislative proposals that just weeks ago would have sliced as much as $800 million from the public benefits portion of consumer electric bills had been reduced to $180 million each for customers of Eversource and United Illuminating.
The numbers are likely to change before the state Senate and House vote.
For an average Eversource customer, a drop from $800 million to $180 million in public benefit costs means a monthly drop in the average customer bill from about $20 to about $5 a month, a company spokesman said.
The savings could be greater for the far fewer United Illuminating customers.
Customers of both utilities pay about $1 billion a year in public benefit costs, which are state mandated programs to develop carbon free electric generation, promote conservation and help pay the electric bills of customers unable to do so.
Defeat of proposals to move a higher proportion of public benefit costs off electric bills by bonding them or paying for them with general taxation is seen as a victory for environmental and conservation advocates.
'It amounts to a less significant reduction,' House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford said. 'It is something but it is not as much as I would like to have seen.
The political fight over how much control Public Utility Regulatory Authority Chairman Marissa Gillett has over electric regulation has been simmering for more than a year. But it has flared up as lawmakers struggle to deliver on comprehensive energy legislation they promised when record heart and market forces conspired to send rates soaring last summer.
Under Gillett, PURA has been in an extended fight with state utilities. Eversource and United Illuminating assert in lawsuits and regulatory filings that PURA has shown an anti-utility bias under Gillett and has issued legally questionable regulatory decisions resulting in repeated reductions in their credit ratings.
The two electric utilities have sued PURA, claiming that Gillett has squeezed fellow commissioners out of the decision making process and is effectively breaking the law by making unilateral decisions.
Candelora, backed by House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, inserted language in the energy bill that would require all commissioners to vote to appoint hearing officers, to vote on all questions before the authority and to make all votes available for public inspection.
Gillett advocates in PURA, the legislature and elsewhere have tried — but so far failed — to change Candelora's language in ways that some lawyers have said would not only preserve her power to direct decisions, but retroactively neutralize the utility suit.
On Monday, language had been inserted in the latest legislative draft that appeared to be another effort to undermine Candelora's proposals.
'There is a sentence in there that is appointing her as the administrator and the way that language is written it would de facto make her the presiding officer on all the cases,' Candelora said. 'So I have had to push back on that. I am waiting to hear back.I don't believe PURA was ever intended to have one person presiding over it.'
'This bill is not going to run in the house if it is not fixed,' Candelora said.
Ritter has agreed, saying the legislation would not be sent to the House without Candlora's support.