Once again, lawmakers take look at utility accountability

By Mark Pazniokas

The Connecticut Mirror

Connecticut took a step Tuesday towards its second overhaul of electric utility accountability and regulation in three years with a bipartisan legislative committee vote to send to the Senate a complex and stillevolving bill.

Senate Bill 7 goes to the floor as an amalgam of at least three bills, two authored by Democrats and one by Republicans on an Energy and Technology Committee where party-line votes often give way to compromise and negotiation.

The handful of negative votes came from Republicans who praised the ambitions of the bill but declined to vote for a measure deemed “a work in progress” by the committee’s co-chair, Sen. Norm Needleman, DEssex. “I am confident we will get to yes on this bill for everybody,” Needleman said.

The approval came in the committee’s last meeting be fore its Thursday deadline for acting on bills. The ad ministration of Gov. Ned La mont generally has endorsed many of the provisions, while reserving judgment until a final version is pro duced.

The session opened in January with the Democratic majority and Republican minority proposing competing bills aimed at addressing the high cost of electricity, the reliability of its generation, and regulator oversight.