Advocates Raise Alarm Over Potential Changes To State Energy Policy

HARTFORD, CT — Under the watchful eye of the Nathan Hale statue in the state Capitol building Thursday afternoon, advocates asked leaders in the General Assembly to maintain multiple energy assistance programs that they say are at risk of being gutted or outright removed in the waning days of the legislative session.

“We’re here with a broad coalition of groups, including Connecticut Citizens Action Group, Sierra Club, AARP, Save the Sound, Environment Connecticut, and others,” said Rep. Steve Winter, D-New Haven. “And we’re here to express deep concerns about potential changes to the foundations of Connecticut’s energy policy, in terms of clean energy, energy equity, and energy affordability.”

At issue are ongoing negotiations regarding Senate Bill 4, the omnibus energy bill that seeks to improve service and lower energy costs for state residents. Final details of the negotiations about the legislation are still unavailable, but advocates said that they’ve heard about provisions that would make affording energy more challenging for the state’s elderly citizens, middle- and low-income residents, and the disabled. 

“We’re just short of a week before the end of the session,” said Samantha Dynowski, state director of the Connecticut Sierra Club. “So things are going to happen fast, and the time to alert folks is not on the last day when you have little or no time to do anything about it. It’s now as we’re hearing what’s being considered.”

John Erlingheuser, senior director of advocacy for the AARP Connecticut, expressed concerns that Connecticut’s residents would be placed by default into time-of-use energy billing, where customers are charged a variable rate that increases during peak usage times and decreases at other times. Erlingheuser said that while such a plan can offer benefits to some residents, any enrollment into such pricing schemes should be done on a voluntary basis. 

“Residents shouldn’t be forced into it, particularly those that are elderly and those that are disabled who have to use medical devices during the day, or in August when it’s a hundred degrees,” he said. “Let’s say they might not even have medical issues, but they’re older and need to run air conditioning at peak times. That would be a tremendous disadvantage to them.”

Bonnie Roswig, director of the Medical-Legal Partnership’s Disability Rights Project at the Center for Children’s Advocacy, spoke against proposed changes to the medical protection statute that keeps utility companies from shutting off energy service to residents with a medical need. She said that vulnerable citizens receive that protection not as a luxury, but as an essential service because they need electricity to stay alive.

“First of all, people who are medically protected need utilities to survive,” she said. “Having medical protection does not create a free pass. It does not absolve anyone of their responsibilities to pay their utility bill, and that new bill comes every single month.”

The secretive nature of the negotiations over SB 4 was another cause for concern for the gathered advocates. Chris Phelps, state director for Environment Connecticut, said that he and his colleagues were concerned that Connecticut’s elected officials would take a page from Washington and deliver a “big, beautiful energy bill” that wouldn’t meet the needs of the state’s most vulnerable residents.

“We do not need an energy bill that makes it harder for families and businesses to cut their dependence on utilities and go solar,” Phelps said. “We do not need an energy bill that makes it harder for senior citizens and low-income families to pay their bills and to pay their energy bills because they’re forced onto higher rate structures that don’t meet their needs, but meet the needs of gas companies and electric companies. We don’t need an energy bill that guts the energy efficiency programs that help you lower your electric bill and don’t help the utilities make money.”

Another rumored change in the bill would pay for energy conservation programs, such as the conservation and load management plan, through bonding. Charles Rothenberger, director of government relations for Save the Sound, rejected the idea. 

“We should be clear. Some people are gonna say, ‘We’re not eliminating those programs. We’re not defunding those programs. We’re simply switching a portion of that funding to bonding,’” he said. “That is simply a bait and switch. Once that shift happens, if we let it happen, guess what? I predict the enthusiasm for bonding for these programs is going to disappear pretty quickly. So this is really nothing more than an attempt to destabilize and eliminate these programs. It is not an attempt to help ratepayers save money.”

The legislative session ends Wednesday, June 4.