by Doug Hardy CTNewsJunkie
Connecticut residents who were still angry over this month’s electricity rate hike were gobsmacked this week when the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) voted unanimously to impose another one, albeit much smaller, with little more than two months before legislative elections.
Republicans reacted by issuing a statement suggesting Democrats were “tone deaf” about the impact of the state’s high electricity costs. But less than 24 hours after the authority’s vote, three of the four top Democrats on the Energy and Technology Committee released a statement announcing that they had submitted a request to PURA to reconsider its April decision.
That decision, which was the subject of loud protest and thousands of complaints being submitted to PURA last week, allowed Eversource and United Illuminating to recover $800 million in costs over only 10 months, rather than amortizing it over two or three years. The two chairs of the Energy committee, Sen. Norm Needleman and Rep. John Steinberg, as well as Vice Chair Rep. Jaime Foster, labeled the decision “extreme.”
Those bills started arriving this month following the two hottest months in state history – further exacerbating residents’ electricity bills because of high usage from air conditioning.
On the heels of last week’s outcry over the rate hike, PURA then voted 3-0 Wednesday to approve an average increase of between $3 and $4 per month for Eversource and United Illuminating customers starting in September. The Aug. 14 vote, which had been scheduled for months, allowed Eversource to start recovering the cost of the state’s electric vehicle charger discount program. Eversource had suspended its participation in that program in June 2023 because of a dispute with PURA over the authority’s votes against other rate hikes.
RELATED
However, most of Connecticut’s residents don’t follow PURA’s dockets closely, or at all, so this week’s vote came as a surprise to many, as did the rate hike that arrived in August, which was reportedly one of the largest increases in decades. It also received news coverage when the authority approved it in April.
Further, no one mentioned the vote scheduled for Aug. 14 last week while lawmakers were reacting to angry residents who had just experienced “rate shock” when they opened their August electricity bills. Republican lawmakers held a news conference and called upon Democratic leaders to schedule a special session to discuss changes to the state’s energy policies. Democrats had not indicated whether they planned to call a special session before the Democratic leaders on the Energy committee took a different approach by asking PURA to reconsider.
The August increase, of which about 20% came from the Public Benefits portion of ratepayers’ bills, was mostly (77%) attributable to the state’s agreement to buy electricity from the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford at 5 cents/kwh for 10 years. Unless changes are made to that decision, ratepayers will pay about $616 million over the next 10 months to cover that cost. The other $184 million of the $800 million rate hike came from the state’s promise to allow Eversource and United Illuminating to recover costs from the nearly four-year moratorium on shutoffs that started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EV program – which provided discounts ranging from $500 to $250,000 for the construction of EV charging stations at every scale – is also part of the Public Benefits portion of residents’ electricity bills. Public and private charging stations were prioritized to increase the sale of EVs in an effort to address the emissions of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles, which remain the state’s largest source of carbon pollution.
The statement from Needleman, Steinberg, and Foster acknowledges the “serious ‘rate shock’ experienced by ratepayers” as a result of the heat wave and “significant increases to public benefits portions of bills due to PURA’s action.”
They said that “communication by the utilities and others regarding anticipated bill increases have significantly underestimated impact and public harm is significant,” and cited a subsection in state law, CGS Sec. 4-181a subsection (4)(b), in making their request for PURA to reconsider its April decision.
According to the statement, the written text of that statute says the agency has the power to reverse or modify its decisions at the request of individuals or the agency itself on a showing of “changed conditions,” with procedures in such cases allowing for reversals or modifications of final decisions as long as impacted parties are informed and participate in proceedings.
They said the urgency of their request was compounded by Wednesday’s vote.
“An increase of this magnitude impacts all ratepayers, from families trying to keep cool in the heat to businesses of all industries,” the statement says. “Rep. Foster noted that some of the hardest-hit ratepayers are restaurants, grocers, and farms needing electric services to provide their wares as well as nonprofits such as food pantries with refrigeration units. The organizations keeping Connecticut families fed experiencing these cost increases could have ripple effects across the state economy, further compounding this squeeze on consumers.”
Needleman – a business owner who ran for office in part to try to mitigate steadily increasing electricity costs – said that “with four summer heat waves so far making the timing of these increases approved by PURA even worse, and with countless state residents struggling under staggering increases to their bills, now is the time to reconsider this rate increase. There are ways to relieve the pressure on residents, including increasing the amount of time this increase is in place to reduce its monthly impact. Otherwise, our residents will continue to pay extreme costs that harm our state’s economies, families and livelihoods.”
Steinberg added: “Many were critical of PURA’s actions earlier this year, and our concerns have proven to be correct as constituents continue to report dramatic increases in cost statewide. PURA has the power to reconsider this increase in a form that can help hundreds of thousands of households. We are calling for it to do just that.”
Gov. Ned Lamont, responding to reporters’ questions following Friday’s Bond Commission meeting, reminded members of the news media that the big increase was not a surprise – that the vote took place in April – before he left for scheduled vacation time.
PURA chair Marissa Gillett was outvoted 2-1 by Vice Chairman John Betkoski III (D) and Michael A. Caron (R) despite her advocating to spread the cost out over a longer period to avoid rate shock.