Connecticut’s two largest utilities expressed slightly differing viewpoints Tuesday on legislation that could reduce the size of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority from a limit of five commissioners to its current roster of just three.
Executives for Avangrid, the parent company of Orange-based United Illuminating, told lawmakers during a public hearing Tuesday that having more commissioners would allow PURA to work faster and include more perspective in its decisions affecting gas, electric and water rates for millions of customers in Connecticut.
Eversource, meanwhile, expressed more ambivalence at the idea, saying they would leave the decision up to lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont.
However, the two companies were united in strong opposition to a few other words in the legislation, Senate Bill 1193, that would give the regulatory authority the ability to place cases in the hands of a single commissioner, regardless of its size.
“It’s critically important to ensure that we have more than one voice rendering these important decisions,” said Vincent Pace, the assistant general counsel for Eversource Energy.
“The concern we have with that current bill is that it says that one person can render those important decisions,” he added. “We think that’s unreasonable, it’s inequitable, it puts too much power in the hands of one decision-maker.”
That issue is at the center of a lawsuit filed by the utilities last week against PURA. The suit contends that the authority’s chairwoman, Marissa Gillett, had usurped the power of her fellow commissioners by placing herself in charge of hundreds of cases dating back years and issuing decisions on those cases without a full vote.
Both Lamont and representatives for PURA have dismissed those claims as being part of a coordinated effort to oust Gillett due to her unfavorable decisions in cases involving the utilities. But Kimberly Harriman, the senior vice president of public and regulatory affairs for Avangrid, said that, by putting forward legislation to eliminate the current requirement for matters to be placed before a panel of multiple commissioners, lawmakers appeared to be giving credence to the utilities’ claims.
“The legislation is one way of legalizing what she [Gillett] has been doing in violation of the law,” Harriman said.
The legislation was introduced by the co-chair of the Energy and Technology Committee, state Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, who said it simply mirrored the language of the law prior to the expansion of PURA’s board from three to five members in 2019.
“We’re making a lot of hay about something that’s turned out to be nothing,” Needleman said, adding that the bill is potentially “many miles” away from its final version.
Despite the change in the law that currently allows Lamont to appoint two additional PURA commissioners, the governor has opted to keep the authority at its current size of three, except for a period of a months last year when he appointed Commissioner David Arconti to serve on an interim basis prior to the retirement of former Commissioner John W. Betkoski III.
Neither Gillett nor other members of PURA submitted testimony on the legislation or the proposal to reduce the statutory number of commissioners.
Tempers flared briefly during the meeting, following a lengthy exchange between Needleman and Harriman that concluded with the utility executive saying, “A judge is an impartial arbiter of the record … when I see a judge at PURA, I’ll let you know.”
“Wow, nice shot,” Needleman responded.
State Rep. Jamie Foster, D-Ellington, called for Harriman to apologize, saying her comments were “denigrating” and “entirely inappropriate.” After the hearing, Harriman said she did not think her comments warranted an apology.
The other co-chair of the committee, state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, simply called for an end to what he referred to as “mishegoss” and for cooler heads to prevail.
“We need to get back to policies and issues and get away from personalities and innuendos,” Steinberg said.
A spokeswoman for PURA declined to comment.