08/24/2022
One of the top issues that face my constituents is the costs of utilities- in particular Eversource. While the legislature doesn’t control rates, PURA does, we have been working to address these costs. (The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) is statutorily-charged with ensuring that Connecticut's investor-owned utilities, including the state’s electric, natural gas, water, and telecommunications companies, provide safe, clean, reliable, and affordable utility service and infrastructure.)
We have introduced legislation in 2020 to start to address this:
*️⃣ performance rate making (no guaranteed ROI)
*️⃣customer credits for outages more than 96 hours
*️⃣fixing the portion of exec salaries that come from ratepayers
*️⃣developing min staffing levels to improve storm responsiveness
*️⃣working with regional partners to better leverage competition
These changes fall well short of the kind of fundamental reform that other states have engineered or CT needs. It is a complex issue that I am working through with my colleagues on the energy and technology committee in the CGA. Unfortunately, there are no “quick fixes” and this is one area we need to be strategic, to get real meaningful results.
In the inteEversource CTce CT is hosting a webinar to discuss programs to help people with their energy bills. Register here: https://www.eversource.com/content/ct-c/residential/account-billing/payment-assistance
