Norm Needleman

Today, State Senator Norm Needleman (D-Essex), Senate Chair of the Energy and Technology Committee, issued the following statement in response to this week’s Eversource announcement that it is pursuing a 19% rate hike from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority in coming months:

“When you go to the casino and lose your money at the blackjack table, you can’t make everyone else pay back your losses. Eversource makes record profits year after year and yet the ratepayers always have to pay more. Eversource’s current cash flow problems are related to their wind power investment gamble. That bet didn’t work out, and now that they’re out of cash, management and executives are coming to the ratepayers to prop up their shareholders.

Plus, instead of diluting their shareholders by selling more stock, they’ve decided to sell Aquarion, which just years ago was considered a strategic acquisition and now it’s considered a non-core to their future business strategy – they’re selling it to just put money in their checking account because they’re out of cash.

Eversource and United Illuminating benefitted from 20 years of a weakly regulated utility environment and now that they’re being held accountable they are screaming to anyone who will listen, all the while showing record profits year after year. Today is proof positive of why we need strong regulators at PURA, and why they need even more tools to fight for ratepayers against corporate greed and mismanagement.

Now that regulators are working in ratepayers’ best interests, led by Chair Gillett, utilities are seeking to pull even more money out of ratepayer pockets. According to earnings reports issued just days ago, Eversource’s saw a 6% increase in earnings per share from 2022 to 2023, while announcing a nearly $2 billion loss on their wind energy gamble. They’re doing fine – at the very least, much better than many Connecticut households. And yet they claim they’re broke and those households need to pick up the slack.

Connecticut deserves better.”