Friday marked a year since a conspiracy-laden opinion piece.
It was signed by two state legislators and lit a fuse that unleashed an uncontained explosion that continues to reverberate inside the Public Utilities Regulatory Agency. This tumultuous year in energy has seen everything but lower rates for consumers.
The op-ed, purportedly written by state Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, and state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, co-chairmen of the legislature’s energy committee, accused Eversource, the state’s largest utility, of rigging international financial rating agencies’ assessment of the company.
From the time it appeared it caused readers with some knowledge of the state energy landscape to scratch their heads and wonder where this incendiary thesis originated. Text messages between Steinberg and PURA’s then-chair, Marissa Gillett, obtained by The Courant’s Ed Mahony suggested the state’s chief energy regulator had had a hand in the writing of the screed that appeared in the CT Mirror.
Needleman, Steinberg, and Gillett denied she played any role in writing the op-ed. The controversy arose as Gillett’s term was concluding, and she would face reconfirmation by the legislature.
Over fragmented opposition and with the firm support of Gov. Ned Lamont, Gillett did win that second term. She put in an emphatic, convincing performance at her confirmation hearing. A claque of PURA staff members signed and published a letter accusing their boss’s critics of misogyny. The claims that the state’s utilities exercise from the shadows vast power beyond that vested in elected officials were firmly refuted. Gillett and her devoted supporters had triumphed. And alert legislators began to be more careful about signing opinion pieces put in front of them.
When Gillett had to resign her post in September it wasn’t the utilities that did her down, it was Gillett. her. Her most lethal blunder continues to confound. At her February confirmation hearing, Gillett had denied that PURA’s two other commissioners had been denied direct access to agency staff members to assist them in carrying out the complex task of regulating energy companies doing business in Connecticut. Gillett was so emphatic, even claiming she had “attestations” from her two colleagues that no email announcing the policy existed that many believed her. Who, after all, would lie about such a straightforward matter?
That memo should have been included in PURA’s response to a request by Eversource for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. It was not.
In September, The Courant’s Mahony reported that the elusive, deadly email limiting Gillett’s colleagues’ access to staff members existed, and he had it. It did not seem like a coincidence that the email was then located in the state’s system.
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The email refuted Gillett’s claims. She could not continue in her position and resigned. Her allies continued to blame the utilities. The American Economic Liberties Project, based in Washington, D.C., blamed “a multi-year bullying campaign to undermine the rule of law [by the utilities] finally succeeded in pushing out” Gillett. The organization’s statement made dark references to “rampant corruption” and “rampant authoritarian practices.” Three months later, Gillett is a senior fellow at the organization.
Attorney General William Tong used Gillett’s resignation to engage in some strenuous huffing and puffing over a water company rate increase response. He blamed the utilities for “running off” Gillett. He must know that is not true. His office conceded every claim the two gas companies made in their lawsuit accusing Gillett and PURA of bias.
The wreckage continued to accumulate last week when Freedom of Information Commission fined Gillett $2,500 for failing to engage in a reasonable search for public documents. And then there is another oddity in all this. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners lists Gillett as “Commissioner Emeritus” on its Connecticut page. Emeritus is an honorific bestowed on former office holders and suggests a continuing relationship with an organization. Outside of academia, state government does not award that honor. But there it is.
The utilities continue to press their litigation. Decisions made under Gillett will be reconsidered. They may prove costly to ratepayers. The public began to notice as the Gillett wars continued through the year that none of the eye-popping drama was doing anything to lower the cost of electricity in Connecticut.
The governor could probably have avoided the embarrassing mess if in 2019 he’d complied with a new law that expanded PURA’s membership to five commissioners. Gillett was able to isolate two veteran members of the commission, but two new additional members might have worked in concert to assert their right to participate in the business of the agency, both thwarting Gillett and saving her from her own appetite for accumulating power.
Now the five members — four of them recently appointed — will spend their terms cleaning up the mess. One of the first will be the money the state owes Eversource for cleaning up two destructive storms and meeting state law’s requirement to prepare for other forecasted weather events whether or not they occur.
The bill has reached $1 billion. Interest on it is piling up at $8 million a month, which to most of us is a lot of money.
An Eversource letter to PURA said, “Starting today, [Dec. 15] carrying costs on the aggregate balance of storm costs are currently estimated in the range of approximately $170 million for the interval between December 1, 2025 and July 2027, creating a cumulative carrying cost for customers of over $500 million.”
Further, it says, while “customers are paying a contribution to the Storm Reserve fund at a rate of approximately $60.5 million annually, this is not in any way sufficient to offset the costs of new storm events that are occurring over time. In a settlement context, the Company is ready, willing and able to work with the interested parties to craft a solution that will best serve the interests of customers, both in terms of supporting safe and expeditious restoration of power after catastrophic weather events and in terms of cost efficiency and mitigated bill impacts.”
Last week, Eversource filed a motion to begin negotiating with the state on the debt.
After a year of bewildering combat, a period of achievements that address the high cost of electricity in Connecticut would reassure ratepayers that someone is paying attention to them.
Reach Kevin Rennie [email protected]