PURA Threats
By Barbara Heimlich, Editor
Sources: Doug Hardy, CT News Junkie; Marc E. Fitch, Connecticut Inside Investigator
Connecticut State Police confirmed Thursday that they are investigating threatening voicemails left for the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) earlier this month. PURA fielded nearly 3,000 complaint calls from late July into August.
According to Taren O’Connor, PURA’s Director of Legislation, Regulations and Communications, the agency previously had been averaging 124 electricity-related complaints a year from 2021 through 2023. The roughly 3,000-call total received following this year’s July rate hike appears to be the most the agency has received over a short period of time in many years, if ever.
The calls were triggered by the arrival of electricity bills for July – the hottest month in the state’s recorded weather history. Electricity consumption was at record levels as many customers had their air conditioners running 24/7 throughout the heat wave, and the billing cycle also unfortunately coincided with a large rate hike to cover some specific costs that had come due.
The rate increase, which the PURA board approved in April on a 2-1 vote with Commissioner Marissa Gillett dissenting, included costs that total an additional $800 million over just 10 months to pay for the state’s contract with the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, as well as the nearly four-year moratorium on electricity shutoffs that started during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Those fees were part of the Public Benefits portion of ratepayers’ electricity bills, which became the focus of anger from customers, online activists, and lawmakers at the state Capitol.
The payment to Millstone accounts for the lion’s share – about $650 million – of the Public Benefits section of customers’ bills, while the payment for the shutoff moratorium accounts for the remaining $150 million.
During the recent tsunami of complaints, aside from the phone calls, PURA staffers became aware of inflammatory and threatening language being used on social media regarding the agency as well. One post referenced Gillett’s home residence and included an image of her with her young children.
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that she has been subjected to that, as there were similar incidents following Tropical Storm Isaias,” O’Conner said. That storm left parts of the state without electricity for several days as the utilities called in mutual aid from surrounding states to clean up the grid and repair the storm damage.
The campaign of complaints has been fomented by social media users who are outraged about their electricity bills. However, the volume of the calls in a short period has forced PURA to reassign staff.
O’Conner said PURA’s Office of Education, Outreach, and Enforcement (EOE) typically operates with four full-time staff members who assist individual consumers by phone or email. In response to the surge in customer correspondence, an additional four EOE staff members have been temporarily reassigned to respond to customer inquiries and complaints.
Aside from cost, much of the dialogue about the rate hike on social media is focused on the context of the culture war between the left and right, with respect to the state’s long-term plans to eliminate fossil fuels from its energy portfolio in an effort to mitigate climate change. Many commenters, angry about their electricity bills, say they don’t think they should have to contribute to those efforts. They also say they don’t think they should have to pay anything extra to help people suffering hardships like being unemployed and not paying their electricity bills.
Last year, when PURA voted 3-0 to put off paying for Millstone and the shutoff moratorium for another year, Eversource officials warned them in writing that they were setting up themselves – and the state’s ratepayers – for a big rate shock.
Republican leaders at the General Assembly have held three news conferences since the July rate hike went into effect. During those events a few members have raised their voices to demand that the Democratic majority call a special session to deal with the rate hikes and make changes. Gov. Ned Lamont recently responded with a letter inviting the Republicans to come to the table to discuss solutions to the state’s electricity costs – which he says is a supply and demand problem.
Democrats also wrote letters to PURA asking the agency to use a statutory process that allows it to reopen rate hikes. Bills were so high for July that the Democratic co-chairs of the Energy and Technology Committee, as well as one of the committee’s vice-chairs, raised concerns about the impact of the bills on small businesses as well as residents.
PURA then approved a second rate hike while residents were still complaining about the one in July. The second rate hike, which was much smaller at an average of $2-$3 per month, was approved to start paying back Eversource for offering discounts on the construction of Electric Vehicle chargers around the state.
Several Democratic leaders wrote to PURA requesting that they re-open the July rate hike while also postponing the second one that is due to start in September.
Eversource, however, has been silent on that request. On background, a company official said the problem with trying to undo a bill that has already been sent is logistics. Customers have already started paying those bills, in some cases setting up payment plans. The utility has never been asked to pull back a bill that’s already been sent. Further, they said the ratepayers will still owe the $800 million.
Republican legislative leaders – who earlier this year refused to budge on requests from nonprofit service providers and other constituencies to change the state’s fiscal guardrails in order to provide them with more funding – are now asking the Democrats to do just that and pull money out of the Rainy Day fund, and is also pushing for long-term changes, such as having the public benefits charge paid for by the General Fund rather than through electric bills for residents; limiting power purchase agreements and moving PURA out from under the control of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), saying the Lamont administration has “politicized” the agency that is supposed to be a watchdog for ratepayers.
“Electricity rates in Connecticut are just too damn high, they’re the third highest in the country, behind only Hawaii, which is an island, and California, which has lost its mind,” said Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, and ranking member on the General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee. “Connecticut state policies, our state government, bears responsibility for those enormously expensive rates, and finally they understand that state leadership needs to act, and they need to act now.”
“Like you, I believe that Connecticut residents are paying too much for electricity and more needs to be done to lower energy costs,” Lamont wrote. “I have reached out to the chairs and ranking members of the Energy and Technology Committee to once again meet in the near future to continue this discussion. If you would like to join, please do. At our meeting, we should discuss the costs and the benefits of each of our supply options. Some solutions I have been working on is drawing down as much federal resources as possible to strengthen our grid and to work on a regional basis on identifying additional supply.”
Lamont went on to highlight “energy efficiency programs,” that help homeowners and businesses save electricity and “reduce demand on the grid.” Those programs are paid for, in part, by the public benefits charge on ratepayers’ electric bills.
One of the public policies ratepayers are on the hook for is PURA recently approving another increase to the public benefits charge to subsidize the installation of electric vehicle chargers both in private homes and in public – something Republican’s said essentially forces the poor to pay for EV charges for the wealthy and is “sick.”
“These electric charging stations cost a lot of freaking money and the people that are driving them are not my constituents, they’re the wealthy constituents in the suburbs, that don’t pay gas tax anymore so they’re not contributing to our roads, they don’t pay any fees for the charging stations and a lot of them get to charge up for free,” Candelora said. “How is that fair to residents who are living in poorer communities that are stuck paying that bill? It’s sick.”
Lamont, in his letter, wrote that the issue is more about “supply and demand.”
“We are at the end of the pipeline, leading to higher supply costs,” Lamont wrote. “This makes even valuable legislatively authorized programs that increase supply and improve grid reliability, like the Millstone contract and electric vehicle charging incentives, more difficult for ratepayers to afford.”
With the election season fast approaching, Republicans are likely to continue hammering Democrats over the cost of electricity, saying that it is the big dinner table issue they are hearing about from their constituents.
“What’s happening here is Democrats are creating policies that are costly for the ratepayers and residents of Connecticut and putting them on their bills,” Candelora said.
