Minority Republicans in the state legislature intensified their push Tuesday to tap budget surplus funds to reduce electric rates this fall.
GOP leaders and their colleagues launched a petition drive to force a special session on the issue. But because a majority of House and Senate members is necessary to force a special session — and because Democratic legislators oppose the move on several grounds — the prospect of legislative votes this fall remains slim.
“Today we’re here to say we’re not going away,” House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said during a mid-morning press conference in the Legislative Office Building. “What we continue hearing from our constituents isn’t that ‘I don’t want to pay my electric bill’. It’s ‘I can’t pay my electric bill.’”
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, added that “It is a dereliction of your duty as a representative or a senator not to do something about this issue and not to do it now.” The next regular legislative session doesn’t begin until Jan. 8.
Republicans say they have a strategy to reduce the average residential customer’s annual electric bill by about $125.
GOP leaders last week said they would take roughly $300 million of the $1.6 billion surplus state government achieved last fiscal year and use those dollars to offset two state-ordered surcharges on ratepayer bills.
The first involves hardship expenses that the state’s two major utilities — Eversource and United Illuminating — face from customers who failed to pay bills. Those hardship expenses increased significantly between March 2020 and May 2024 when the legislature imposed special limits on utility shutoffs to help households deal with costs tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
The second surcharge is connected to a nine-year plan launched in 2021 to establish a statewide electric-vehicle charging program.
GOP leaders said all 53 Republicans in the House and all 12 in the Senate have signed the petition trying to force a session. But it can’t be done without a majority of both chambers’ members, which means 76 representatives and 19 senators.
Democratic leaders said last week the Republican cost-cutting plan doesn’t make sense.
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said his office believes the monthly savings is closer to half of the figure Republicans have cited.
And both he and Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, noted that Republicans are targeting funds that are earmarked to expand the state’s emergency budget reserve, commonly known as the rainy day fund. This seems to be a double standard, Democratic leaders say, noting that it’s contrary to the state budget controls that Republicans insist must be followed strictly.
Democrats say the minority is pursuing meager relief to gain support from voters during a state election year.
“Much of what [Republicans] have suggested in policy is pure politics,” said Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, co-chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee.
Eversource and United Illuminating don’t generate their own electricity but purchase it from generators. Republicans also want a special session to order a cap on future power purchase agreements that would bar utilities from having to pay more 150% of the average wholesale market price.
Republicans also say legislators and Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, need to sit down to discuss filling the two vacant seats on the state’s five-member Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, commonly known as PURA.
The governor wrote to Republican leaders Tuesday indicating he has invited legislative leaders to discuss issues of concern and remains open to talks.
“High energy costs benefit nobody,” he wrote. “What we need are practical, real solutions that will lower energy costs for the long term. I firmly believe that this is not a partisan issue and that we all want a system in place that drives down the costs of producing and delivering energy.”
The governor added that “the answer is not about a bureaucratic shuffling at PURA.”
During a public event later Tuesday, the governor didn’t rule out a short-term subsidy to reduce bills but said the optimal solution involves finding ways to improve energy supply in Connecticut.
