OPINION: Wind power prices are not only high, but secret

I think it's pretty clear that Connecticut Republicans have managed to find a topic they can use successfully against Democrats this fall: a staggering increase in electric rates.You can tell they've gotten under Gov. Ned Lamont's collar, even though he's not even on the ballot in November.Indeed, the Republicans have been pretty deft in raising a ruckus about the rising electric bills, holding press conferences and hollering that Lamont won't take up their ideas to somehow subsidize costs for electric customers.Lamont seems to have frozen up on the issue and has yet to respond to the proposals for new wind farm deals jointly solicited by Connecticut with Massachusetts and Rhode Island.The other two states promised to buy some of the offered wind power, but Lamont is dithering, obviously still in sticker shock, as Republicans hammer him over existing high electric bills in his state.Then this week Republican senators managed to twist the electric costs knife a little further into the governor's back, noting that incredibly, the New England governors are willing to commit to these new wind farm power deals without explaining to ratepayers how much they are.That's right. It's incredible, but Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as Connecticut has in the past, offered to buy electricity from specific bids submitted by developers of different proposed wind farms but won't tell the public the prices.This became a rich complaint in a letter from Senate Republicans to Lamont asking that he reveal the potential wind farm prices before he agrees to any and they are baked in to new contracts that customers will have no choice but to pay."We were very alarmed when we realized Massachusetts will have finalized its deal long before the public knows the true costs of that contract," the Republicans wrote. "Ratepayers there will be locked in to paying those prices before they even know what those prices are."We cannot allow that to happen here in Connecticut. We need transparency."The subtext here is that the Republicans want Lamont, if he's going to make some new deal to buy expensive wind power, be transparent and that voters know the costs before the election.Good luck with that. Even when his back isn't against the wall, Lamont has zero interest in government transparency.I asked the Republicans' staff if they ever heard back from Lamont about their request to be transparent about pricing and they didn't respond.It could be the governor never responded to them. Or it could be the Republicans hate me so much for complaints that they are not denouncing Donald Trump - the GOP chairman in Groton publicly calls me human garbage - that they just don't respond, even when I suggest they are right about something.Lamont's staff, when I asked about his response to the GOP letter, sent me the tape of a press conference in which the governor said it would be "premature to release all that," all that being prices we'd all have to pay."It's a negotiation," he said, and apparently that means ratepayers are not allowed to know how much the wind power merchants are trying to charge.The governor put a positive spin on his reluctance to bid on the latest wind offers, saying prices may eventually come down with interest rates."We will see what pricing looks like going forward," the governor said, pretty much, as I recall, what he said when the last wind power deals fell apart because of pricing.And as the Republican senators will tell you, none of us will know exactly when that secret pricing is low enough for the governor to make a deal with hidden pricing.This is the opinion of David Collinsd.collins@theday.com