Blue state lawmakers devise plan to saddle taxpayers with soaring energy prices

Connecticut Democratic lawmakers are proposing that taxpayers foot the bill for high utility costs in the state, which policy experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation largely attributed to state-funded renewable energy projects.

Senate Bill 1560 proposes removing the public benefits charge — a required surcharge on utility customers’ bills that funds state-mandated programs, including renewable energy investment — from electricity bills. Instead, the state would borrow up to $2.4 billion by selling bonds, thus transferring the financial burden from utility customers to taxpayers.

“They’re looking at creating this Electric Rate Stabilization Fund — taking taxpayer dollars and redistributing that to people to help them pay for their exorbitant electric bills that they’ve created,” CEO and founder of American Energy Institute Jason Isaac said. “They’re trying to virtue signal and appease a leftist base of their voters.”

The bill proposes significant changes to the state’s energy rate structures and would create the Connecticut Energy Procurement Authority to oversee both the Electric Rate Stabilization Fund (ERSF) and the Green Bond Fund (GBF). While the ERSF and GBF would both be funded by up to $2.4 billion in state-issued bonds over three years, the ERSF would focus on stabilizing electricity rates for consumers, while the GBF would support green energy and infrastructure projects. The bill additionally outlines that nuclear power generators in the state should be classified as renewable energy sources.

“It’s an ingenious way to hide the fact that renewable energy and climate related programs are nothing but an unnecessary expense that do absolutely nothing for the climate,” author and Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano told the DCNF, calling so-called green energy policies an “unbelievable grift” pushed on taxpayers.

Connecticut has supported several expensive renewable energy projects in the past, including for solar power development, zero-emission dock equipment and electric vehicle (EV) incentives. All the while, utility costs in New England and Connecticut have risen to be among the highest in the country, which one report by a coalition of six think tanks linked to the area’s several renewable energy projects.

While the state eventually backed out of its proposed offshore wind projects, Connecticut sunk $311 million into refurbishing a pier with the purpose of launching offshore wind turbines that never made it out to sea, according to the CT Mirror. The fate of the project is still being discussed, though it is over $200 million over budget, WSHU Public Radio reports.

In May 2022, Democratic Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed a law requiring the state’s electricity to be entirely carbon-free by 2040, officially codifying the standard he had first set by executive order in 2019. The legislation set several targets, including a reduction in emissions by 45% from 2001 levels by 2030.

Government-mandated energy projects in the state have received just over $1 billion annually from the public benefits charge, two electric distribution companies said in a testimony on April 16, according to Connecticut Inside Investigator.

Customers of Eversource, one of the energy distributors, are currently paying about $800 million annually in public benefits charges, which include $380 million for state-mandated solar energy procurement requirements, according to the testimony.

Connecticut has the third-highest electricity costs, behind Hawaii and California, according to February data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. On average, Connecticut residents’ energy bills are 30% higher than the national average, according to an analysis from Home Energy Club. Moreover, states with renewable energy requirements see a roughly 4% increase the average electric bill, while in Connecticut the added cost is just over 5%, according to a 2024 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

As American energy demand continues to climb, the odds of impending blackouts would increase if the supply fails to grow at the same rate. The push toward renewable energy sources, in addition to stringent environmental regulations approved under former President Joe Biden, may have contributed to the slower growth of energy supply currently being experienced in the U.S.

Renewables are generally less reliable than other sources of power and need to work in tandem with “base load” power sources such as coal, energy experts previously told the DCNF. As several states around the U.S. ramp up climate initiatives and the demand for electricity continues to grow, many experts have warned that the risk of grid blackouts increases, with rolling blackouts predicted to begin by 2028, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s 2024 report.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on April 8 directing his administration to examine state efforts to sue or impose large financial penalties on energy companies over climate change. The order is expected to focus on Democrat-led states such as New York and California, which have pursued legal actions seeking billions of dollars from the energy industry.

“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,” Trump’s order reads. “Many States have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”

While Biden encouraged the further development of renewables through billions of tax credits and subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act, Trump declared a national energy emergency immediately upon his return to the White House, stating that “the integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure” is “an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security.”

Connecticut’s Senate Bill 1560 progressed through the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee Wednesday on a bipartisan vote, according to the CT Mirror. Democratic Connecticut Sen. John Fonfara, the bill’s sponsor, said that dropping the public benefits charge would cut electricity bills by 20% during a press conference on April 16, according to CT Insider.

“There are certain fundamental truths that we must acknowledge and act on if we want to reverse the path we are on,” Fonfara said at the conference. “If we choose to do nothing, electricity costs will continue to increase.”

Fonfara’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

“Within this legislative proposal are ideas that the governor looks forward to discussing further, such as ways to continue improving our standard service procurement process and smoothing out distribution use over the course of the day,” Rob Blanchard, the director of communications for Lamont, wrote to the DCNF. “However, there are concerns and significant questions as well.”

“Few examples exist, if at all, of states that have successfully introduced separate procurement authorities, let alone ones that operate outside of mechanisms designed to protect ratepayers and that can be done without saddling ratepayers with hundreds of millions of dollars more in expenses,” Blanchard continued. He said the governor “would prefer” the state cut “outdated or unnecessary” public charges, “rather than putting annual expenses on our ‘credit card’ or crowding out bonding for municipal parks, roads, and school construction.”

“Connecticut’s solution is to make taxpayers pay for electricity versus ratepayers and just shows the bankruptcy of the whole renewable energy movement,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute and creator of JunkScience told the DCNF. “Costs are higher and they’re always going to be higher,” Milloy added regarding renewable energy projects. “It’s never going to be cheaper.”

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