On January 1, your Eversource bill went up — again. This time, 29%. That’s roughly $20 more per month for the average household. If you’re stretched thin, that’s groceries. That’s gas. That’s a decision you shouldn’t have to make.
This week, Eversource announced its 2025 earnings: $1.69 billion in profit. The day before that news hit, the Hartford Courant was already calling electricity prices “a major issue” in this fall’s governor’s race. Both things are true. And together, they tell a story Connecticut’s political class would rather not tell.
Here’s the story.
For years, Connecticut ratepayers have been subsidizing one of the most expensive electricity systems in the country — 23.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, fifth highest in the nation, nearly double the national average. Eversource has $1.5 billion in storm repair costs they want to pass on to customers, costs that have been accruing $8 million every month in interest because the company delayed bringing them to regulators. That interest isn’t an act of God. It’s a choice. Eversource chose to keep paying dividends to shareholders for 25 consecutive years of increases rather than settle up with the people who keep the lights on.
Now they want you to pay not just the bill — but the interest on the money they borrowed while they were paying their investors. Ratepayers are being asked to bail out shareholders. That’s not a utility serving the public. That’s a monopoly extracting from a captive market.
There’s a detail buried in this week’s earnings coverage that deserves much more attention. A year ago, Eversource was threatening to slash capital investment in Connecticut in response to decisions by the state’s utility regulatory chief, Marissa Gillett, who was pressing the company to actually prioritize customers. Eversource pushed hard. Gillett resigned last September. One week later, they got the rate increase they’d been seeking for years — from 9% to 9.25% return on equity — a number they’d been fighting for through years of regulatory battles and a very public pressure campaign against the person standing in their way.
Let that sequence sink in. The regulator who stood up for customers is gone. The rate increase came through. Eversource’s profits are up. Their relationship with regulators is, in their own words, “constructive.”
This is not just a Connecticut story. What Eversource did here — mount a sustained PR campaign to destroy a regulator’s credibility, force her out, and immediately collect their reward — is a playbook. It is now a model for investor-owned utilities across the country for how to handle regulators who take their jobs seriously. Connecticut ratepayers didn’t just get squeezed. They got made into a case study.
Gov. Ned Lamont’s response to all of this is a one-time $200 rebate check and an “all of the above” energy strategy that includes meeting with the Trump administration to expand natural gas pipelines into Connecticut. I want to be direct about what that check actually is: it’s not a policy, it’s a purchase. The money comes from the same ratepayers who just got hit with a 29% rate increase — taken from the middle class, handed back in an election year, and called relief.
A governor who has presided over some of the highest electricity costs in the nation, who watched a utility systematically dismantle the regulator protecting his constituents, is now offering you $200 to forget about it. That’s not a solution. That’s an insult with a check attached. And a pipeline sounds like it addresses supply — until you remember that natural gas prices swing wildly, especially in winter, and building more infrastructure around fossil fuels doesn’t reduce our dependence on them. It deepens it. We’ll be having this same conversation a decade from now, just with higher bills and longer shadows.
I’ll be direct about what I think needs to change, because vague aspirations aren’t a plan.
First, Eversource’s monopoly on distribution needs to face real competition. Connecticut towns should have the right to form public utilities and build out their own local power systems. The evidence that this works isn’t theoretical. Nebraska is the only state in the country where electricity is provided entirely by publicly-owned utilities — and it ranks among the three cheapest states for electricity in the nation. Connecticut pays more than twice what Nebraska pays per kilowatt-hour. That’s not a coincidence of geography or climate. It’s the direct result of a structural difference: public utilities borrow money through municipal bonds at 4 to 5 percent interest. Investor-owned utilities like Eversource pay shareholders returns of up to 10 or 11 percent. You’re not just paying for electricity — you’re paying for that spread, every single month. According to the American Public Power Association, customers served by public utilities pay between $100 and $320 less per year than customers served by investor-owned monopolies. Connecticut families deserve that same deal.
That’s not a radical idea — it’s how much of rural America has kept electricity affordable for generations. Connecticut just never had a governor willing to take on the fight. I know, because when I started saying this publicly, I was approached by people close to the Capitol and told — politely — that I should perhaps sit down with some party leadership and think it through. That conversation confirmed I was on the right track.
Second, the transition to clean energy is essential, and the long-term economics are on its side — solar, wind, and battery storage don’t have fuel costs that spike in February. But that transition requires investment, and that investment can’t keep falling on working families who are already paying some of the highest rates in the country. If we’re serious about building the infrastructure that brings bills down over time, Connecticut’s wealthiest residents and most profitable corporations need to contribute their fair share. That’s the change I’m running to make.
FDR once said, “Judge me by the enemies I have made.” He was talking about utility companies. The parallels are not subtle, and they are not lost on me.
Your electric bill is not an act of God. It’s the result of decisions — about monopoly power, about who regulates whom, about who gets to walk away from a fight and who has to keep paying. Connecticut can make different decisions. But only if we elect a governor who will actually make them.
Josh Elliott is a Connecticut State Representative and candidate for governor.