Legislature’s nominations committee next electricity cost battleground
A growing number of legislators legislators may make a dramatic futile gesture to embarrass Gov. Ned Lamont in their fruitless search for lower electricity rates. It is a doozy of a plan.
Lamont has nominated Marissa Gillett to serve another term as the $200,593-a-year head of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, or PURA. Gillett has become the face of failure in Connecticut’s struggle to provide plentiful, reliable and reasonably priced electricity in the dawning age of electrification.
When Gillett became the leader of PURA, Connecticut consumers were burdened with electricity rates that were among the highest in the nation. Six years later, they still are. This is not progress. Worse awaits us if there are not changes in public policies. Lamont has been an impediment to increased use of natural gas generating plants, the only short term solution.
Offshore wind power plans have gone from a mess to a shambles.
Gillett has been unrestrained in her hostility to the state’s utilities.
She has accumulated influence at the expense of the other members of the board she leads.
Her avarice for domination has marginalized other voices.
Gillett is not the first high ranking agency head to have collected a long list of detractors. She may be the first to be tossed out of her job by the legislature. This is not done in Connecticut. Leaders work things out away from public scrutiny. Not this year.
Eversource, aggrieved and wounded by Gillett’s treatment of the state’s largest utility, hires more lobbyists than any other entity. Often quiet operators, Team Eversource does not seem to care who knows they have joined the informal coalition to dump Gillett. Eversource’s top two corporate government relations strategists have deep ties with Senate Democrats. One of them, Jonathan Harris, served as a member of the Senate from West Hartford and later joined the Lamont administration.
Leslie O’Brien, the former chief of staff to the Democrats, still holds a title among high ranking legislative staff members in memory. She commands a mighty army of lobbyists.
Eversource’s corporate brass in Boston cannot be happy that decisions made in Connecticut are hurting corporate profits. The company thrives in Massachusetts by getting along with state leaders. They may be regretting their 2012 merger with Northeast Utilities. The street smart Eversource overlords and their shareholders must be disappointed in their Connecticut team. Very disappointed indeed.
Last summer, utility customers had to pay for the legislature’s misbegotten 2017 decision to require utilities to purchase power from Dominion’s Millstone nuclear plan in Waterford at rates that are often above the market price. The bill came due as legislators were at their most visible at home—during an election campaign. They were dismayed they could offer no credible plan for lower costs in the future. They still cannot.
Thus, a dramatic gesture is required to buy some time.
State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, serves as Gillett’s chief advocate in the legislature. This is her misfortune. Needleman, the Senate chair of the energy committee, also seems not to possess a functioning GPS app to tell him the way forward.
Energy policy usually avoids the poisonous partisan divisions that mark so much of contemporary politics. Needleman crossed an informal line when he donated $1,000 last fall to the campaign of fellow Democrat Nick Simmons.
Simmons was running a vigorous and historically well-funded campaign against Greenwich Republican incumbent Ryan Fazio.
Most nights you will search the skies over Connecticut in vain for a Republican rising star. Fazio is one of the few who appears now and then, almost always on energy issues. His is knowledgeable and knows how to make a point. He serves as the top Republican on the energy committee. Needleman and Fazio had worked closely together on energy issues. For Needleman to try to take out Fazio infuriated Republicans. They like the 34-year-old political survivor and hope he represents a brighter future for them.
On Tuesday, Needleman joined his Senate Democratic colleagues in commandeering a sober press event in Lamont’s office condemning the Trump administration’s order to freeze funding for many critical federal programs. Needleman condemned state Republicans.
“We need to stop making nice with people who have sold their souls to the devil….We have the might; let’s show them what’s right.”
Republicans in Connecticut would not mind these threats if they had a sliver of the power their counterparts in Washington now alternatively exercise or bow to. But on almost every day in Connecticut they have no power—until the fight over Gillett. Republicans who support Gillett were thin on the ground a week ago; now there may be none.
If the Republicans in the legislature join with their Democratic colleagues who have had enough, Gillett’s nomination will be defeated. Lamont does not have a reputation for vengeance, so Democrats who oppose Gillett may think it comes at no cost to them. Still, Lamont will be wounded.
The first battleground will be the legislature’s nominations committee. It has yet to set a date for a public hearing on Gillett’s nomination. When it does, the public will have a meaningful moment to jolt Lamont with its frustration over the cost of electricity in Connecticut.
Reach Kevin F. Rennie at kfrennie@ yahoo.com.
Lamont has nominated Marissa Gillett to serve another term as the $200,593-a-year head of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, or PURA. Gillett has become the face of failure in Connecticut’s struggle to provide plentiful, reliable and reasonably priced electricity in the dawning age of electrification.
When Gillett became the leader of PURA, Connecticut consumers were burdened with electricity rates that were among the highest in the nation. Six years later, they still are. This is not progress. Worse awaits us if there are not changes in public policies. Lamont has been an impediment to increased use of natural gas generating plants, the only short term solution.
Offshore wind power plans have gone from a mess to a shambles.
Gillett has been unrestrained in her hostility to the state’s utilities.
She has accumulated influence at the expense of the other members of the board she leads.
Her avarice for domination has marginalized other voices.
Gillett is not the first high ranking agency head to have collected a long list of detractors. She may be the first to be tossed out of her job by the legislature. This is not done in Connecticut. Leaders work things out away from public scrutiny. Not this year.
Eversource, aggrieved and wounded by Gillett’s treatment of the state’s largest utility, hires more lobbyists than any other entity. Often quiet operators, Team Eversource does not seem to care who knows they have joined the informal coalition to dump Gillett. Eversource’s top two corporate government relations strategists have deep ties with Senate Democrats. One of them, Jonathan Harris, served as a member of the Senate from West Hartford and later joined the Lamont administration.
Leslie O’Brien, the former chief of staff to the Democrats, still holds a title among high ranking legislative staff members in memory. She commands a mighty army of lobbyists.
Eversource’s corporate brass in Boston cannot be happy that decisions made in Connecticut are hurting corporate profits. The company thrives in Massachusetts by getting along with state leaders. They may be regretting their 2012 merger with Northeast Utilities. The street smart Eversource overlords and their shareholders must be disappointed in their Connecticut team. Very disappointed indeed.
Last summer, utility customers had to pay for the legislature’s misbegotten 2017 decision to require utilities to purchase power from Dominion’s Millstone nuclear plan in Waterford at rates that are often above the market price. The bill came due as legislators were at their most visible at home—during an election campaign. They were dismayed they could offer no credible plan for lower costs in the future. They still cannot.
Thus, a dramatic gesture is required to buy some time.
State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, serves as Gillett’s chief advocate in the legislature. This is her misfortune. Needleman, the Senate chair of the energy committee, also seems not to possess a functioning GPS app to tell him the way forward.
Energy policy usually avoids the poisonous partisan divisions that mark so much of contemporary politics. Needleman crossed an informal line when he donated $1,000 last fall to the campaign of fellow Democrat Nick Simmons.
Simmons was running a vigorous and historically well-funded campaign against Greenwich Republican incumbent Ryan Fazio.
Most nights you will search the skies over Connecticut in vain for a Republican rising star. Fazio is one of the few who appears now and then, almost always on energy issues. His is knowledgeable and knows how to make a point. He serves as the top Republican on the energy committee. Needleman and Fazio had worked closely together on energy issues. For Needleman to try to take out Fazio infuriated Republicans. They like the 34-year-old political survivor and hope he represents a brighter future for them.
On Tuesday, Needleman joined his Senate Democratic colleagues in commandeering a sober press event in Lamont’s office condemning the Trump administration’s order to freeze funding for many critical federal programs. Needleman condemned state Republicans.
“We need to stop making nice with people who have sold their souls to the devil….We have the might; let’s show them what’s right.”
Republicans in Connecticut would not mind these threats if they had a sliver of the power their counterparts in Washington now alternatively exercise or bow to. But on almost every day in Connecticut they have no power—until the fight over Gillett. Republicans who support Gillett were thin on the ground a week ago; now there may be none.
If the Republicans in the legislature join with their Democratic colleagues who have had enough, Gillett’s nomination will be defeated. Lamont does not have a reputation for vengeance, so Democrats who oppose Gillett may think it comes at no cost to them. Still, Lamont will be wounded.
The first battleground will be the legislature’s nominations committee. It has yet to set a date for a public hearing on Gillett’s nomination. When it does, the public will have a meaningful moment to jolt Lamont with its frustration over the cost of electricity in Connecticut.
Reach Kevin F. Rennie at kfrennie@ yahoo.com.
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