3 days ago
Connecticut State Senate advances legislation aimed at lowering electricity bills
CONNECTICUT (WTNH) — After a brief debate and a nearly unanimous vote, the Connecticut State Senate advanced a major piece of energy legislation that proponents say will deliver a modest reduction of electric bills for ratepayers across the state.
The legislation came after months of delicate, closed-door negotiations between legislators and members of the Lamont administration who were faced with a tangled web of competing interests within Connecticut's energy ecosystem.
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'We tried to thread the needle very, very carefully,' State Sen. Norm Needleman, the Democratic co-chair of the legislature's Energy and Technology Committee, said.
In threading that needle, policymakers said they'd opted for changes that could deliver as much as $200 worth of annual reductions to ratepayers — depending on the size of their bill and other factors.
That reduction will be delivered by shifting certain costs of the public benefits portion of ratepayer bills. Revenue from the public benefits charge is used to fund a range of government-directed energy programs, including the procurement of renewable energy.
The charge was at the epicenter of ratepayer outrage last summer when a confluence of factors, including historically hot weather and costs associated with the operation of Millstone Nuclear Power Station, caused bills to spike.
The Millstone-related costs were the primary driver of last summer's spike in the public benefits charge and have since come off of ratepayer bills as planned, but the flood of attention paid to the public benefits portion of the bill spurred lawmakers to scrutinize other programs funded by the charge.
'Some of the public benefits charges have already fallen off the bill,' Needleman said, referencing the Millstone costs. 'I've argued for a long time that there was a one time spike that happened quickly but is coming down at a slower rate. So, we're just sort of adding to how fast it's coming down.'
Instead of placing the costs of certain programs on the backs of ratepayers, lawmakers will utilize bonding — essentially swiping the state's credit card — and cuts in certain areas.
For Republicans, those cuts are welcome but not as expansive as they would've liked to see. State Sen. Ryan Fazio, the leading Republican senator on the Energy and Technology Committee, has long argued that the whole sum of programs funded by the public benefits charge off of ratepayer bills.
Under that proposal, the programs would be neither covered by ratepayers or the state's credit card. Rather, those programs would be subject to the legislature's biannual budgetary process — a process that would in all likelihood mean the outright elimination of some programs.
'Senate Republicans and I have argued for years that we should be eliminating the public benefits charge,' Fazio said. 'But we're at least glad that we're able to find a compromise with our Democratic Party and pass legislation that delivers the first cut of any significance in public benefits programs.'
The bill now heads to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
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