Residents deliver petition with 68K signatures to end public benefits charge on electric bills

Outraged Connecticut residents delivered a petition to Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday with 68,000 signatures calling for a break on rising electric bills.Monroe resident Scott Pearson started the petition on July 28 to express his outrage over the public benefits charge on Eversource bills and to ask for it to be removed. The charge is being paid over 10 months to cover a deal with the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford and also unpaid bills for customers who avoided shutoffs for four years due to the coronavirus pandemic.Pearson said Connecticut residents became overwhelmed with energy bills that doubled and even tripled because of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority's rate hike approval for Eversource and United Illuminating customers."I want to bring awareness back," Pearson said. "I want Governor Lamont to see the 1,500 pages of all of the signers throughout the state. It's 68,000 signatures, and when you see it on the web it's one thing, when you see it on paper it has a different impact."I want him to realize the middle class and seniors are hurting from this," he added. "They are paying the public benefits on the backs of Eversource and United Illuminating customers."State Sen. Jeff Gordon, R-35th District, was one of the speakers at the brief event at the State Capital building on Thursday morning. He said legislatures are working on as many as 17 proposals."We should take the public benefits charges off of the electric bill," Gordon said. "Your electric bill should be about the electricity you used and nothing else. You can take those off and you don't have to increase taxes, and we can keep these programs"Another thing is to limit some of these long-term power purchase agreements," Gordon added. "That is four, five or six times more expensive than what they are now. People can't afford that. We also passed a law this year that said in the future, let's build in with other states and be smart about this. Let's not do this alone. Maybe we can leverage a better deal with other states."Donnetta Campbell, a Middlebury business owner, showed how her Eversource bill went up from $1,129.02 on June 21 to $3,198,00 on Aug 26 at her home. She said it's a large, creaky, 100-year-old house. She quickly noticed that there was an $800 public benefits charge."When I opened my bill, it was $3,200 and I almost fell over in my chair," Campbell said. "We had struggled through COVID, and we had struggled through layoffs, but we survived but I had opened this bill, and I think Eversource needs to be reined in some — a lot actually.""I'm a believer in givebacks," Campbell said. "But it's a choice, and it shouldn't be tied to your electricity."She said she's using a payment plan to pay off the balance."The best thing I found was Scott's petition," Campbell said. "It's bipartisan and it's very clear about what caused it, and it comes down to who is doing something about it."A Lamont staffer accepted the box containing the 1,500-page petition.At a media availability later that afternoon at the Hartford Convention Center, Lamont said he would look at the petition and the names."You have to pay for the power you are receiving," Lamont said. "The public benefit is related to the Millstone carbon-free nuclear power we are getting at a pretty good price. If you want to take it off of the ratepayers, you are probably saying you want it on the taxpayers to pay for it. Because you are not going to get it for free."Millstone represents 77% of the current public benefits charge and the other 23% pays for various bipartisan programs and recovering charges from the four-year moratorium in which the utilities were blocked from shutting off various customers that started during the coronavirus pandemic.In addition, state utility regulators recently approved a plan for Eversource and United Illuminating to be repaid about $3 per month per residential customer — depending on their level of usage — in the public benefits charges for their costs in the electric vehicle charger program. That became effective on Sept. 1, 2024, and will last until April 30, 2025.The largest portion of the fee, the Millstone costs, date back to a deal the state cut with Millstone in 2017 to ensure that the then-ailing complex would remain open after the owners had threatened to close the station. In return, the state has kept a reliable supplier of electricity that has been crucial in a deregulated electricity system.The Millstone costs, which started on July 1, will continue as part of a 10-month payment period that some advocates had pushed to be spread out over 22 months to avoid a rate shock. But state utility regulators rejected that idea in a 2-1 vote."You don't just take off (the public benefits charge) you shift it," Lamont added. "Everyone else is going to have to pay for it and I don't think it's a good idea. But if someone wants to bring it up in the next session, I will listen. … I'm looking for constructive solutions and not political points."Regarding Republicans' request for a special session that would discuss taking from American Rescue Plan Act funds or somewhere else in the budget, Lamont noted, "When you are saying, taking from the budget, that means you want taxpayers to pay, Don't let people use, 'I want the general fund to pay that,' I don't think I want taxpayers to pay for electricity. I want to increase the supply of electricity until we bring down rates. I'm negotiating with natural gas, I'm negotiating with nuclear power and I'm negotiating with wind power and bringing down solar. I'm doing everything I can to bring down electricity prices."Lamont said every dime from ARPA has been allocated already. His solution is to increase demand and increase supply.As far as the 68,000 people who signed the petition, Lamont said he hears them."I want those people to know that we have very high electric prices, and I know what that means to a family with a fixed income and I know I'm doing everything in my heart to bring down those electric prices. I know what it means to consumers who have a hard time paying that bill. I also know what it means to attract new businesses to the state."Pearson said Thursday marks the final step for him in this quest. He said he wanted to bring attention to senior citizens who are deciding whether to put on their air conditioning when it's 90 degrees outside and not have to worry if they can afford it. He said he has received a lot of heart-breaking emails from those who signed his petition, and many are saying they have to leave the state because it's too expensive."This is not political for me," Pearson said. "It's not about blaming anyone. There are a lot of smart people in Hartford, and I know they can come up with something better."