State leaders met at Hartford's Legislative Office Building on Thursday to address the rising cost of utilities, specifically within the public benefits portion of the bill.
“It’s very expensive the way the bill comes out at the end of the month, and it hurts,” said Simsbury’s Kristine Martin.
Rising utility prices are continuing to cause pain throughout the state.
“Honestly, I have to find myself trying to make payment arrangements to be able to afford it,” said Middletown’s Keder Beckford.
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Thursday, Senate and House Republicans called on Governor Ned Lamont for a special legislative session to address the drastic increase in public benefits costs that ratepayers have seen on their electricity bill.
“I’m happy to talk to the leadership about that. I have to hear if they have real recommendations that would make an immediate difference for ratepayers,” Gov. Lamont said.
In the short-term, Republicans urge the state to use leftover American Rescue Plan Act funds to help cover costs brought on by the four-year long moratorium on energy shut-offs.
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“We’re looking at one time revenues to fix a one time problem,” said House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Branford.)
That moratorium enabled hardship customers to keep their power on without paying, which ended earlier this year.
“One could argue that we should’ve anticipated a fair share of this, but we didn’t know the full measure until the utilities submitted their RAM adjustment request and that wasn’t all that long ago,” said Rep. Jonathan Steinberg (D-Westport.)
Eversource, as well as Democrats, have said the majority of the cost relates to power purchase agreements, including a 2017 deal with Millstone nuclear power plant.
“That’s 78% of that so-called public benefits charge,” Gov. Lamont said.
Many Republicans supported that deal, but now say the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority’s decision to maintain low prices in previous years contributed to the current price shock.
“The cost was accumulated over two years because PURA has continued to deny our utility companies to recover in a timely fashion,” Rep. Candelora said.
These rate changes to the public benefit portion of the bill, which the utility companies can’t profit from, started in July and are expected to last 10 months.
“I don’t want this to be a blame game. I want this to be a solution game, so whatever, if there are good ideas to the table, let’s talk about them,” Rep. Steinberg said.
PURA said it can’t comment at this point.
