During last night’s live blog with Tom Swan a few of us asked for a side by side comparison of the dueling House and Senate energy bills. Tom promised that a chart would be posted on CCAG’s website the next day, and today they made good on that promise. The comparison was done by Connecticut’s Office of Consumer Counsel.
Office of Consumer Counsel Comparison of HB 7098 and SB 1374
12 responses so far ↓
Uh huh. So they still have the same lines drawn in the sand that prevented them from passing a bill by May of ‘06. With a year to work on it we STILL have nothing. Aside from higher UI and CTLP bills. Great work supermajority! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
You’ll rue the day!
The Day is reporting that people are raising issues with the Senate bill and are coming out in favor of the House version.
They also say that Amann and Williams have been meeting this week to create a compromise.
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=e8ae0f14-0062-43d9-9a12-6466081aded6
Has the consuner cousel supported pretty girl Nardello’s plan for a wind fall profits tax all along. seems less objective than you might think.
OCC is actually neutral on the windfall profits tax. We do generally support Representative Nardello because she works tirelessly in the public interest. Connecticut is lucky to have her.
[quote comment="10155"]OCC is actually neutral on the windfall profits tax. We do generally support Representative Nardello because she works tirelessly in the public interest. Connecticut is lucky to have her.[/quote]
We? Referring to yourself in the 3rd person? Are you Bob Dole in disguise?
What ever bill finally passes, I hope that the end product eliminates the third party ‘interceptors’ that don’t add value, only cost, to the electricty and permit distributers to negotate directly with suppliers. This may keep costs down and encourage suppliers to build more generation in CT.
Shucks, my cover is blown. Yes, Architect, we are indeed Bob Dole in disguise. And if there is one thing we know, it’s the difference between good energy policy and energy policy that sounds good. Now, excuse me why we go find Elizabeth.
OOPS, we meant “while” we go find Elizabeth. Silly we.
[quote comment="10374"]Shucks, my cover is blown. Yes, Architect, we are indeed Bob Dole in disguise. And if there is one thing we know, it’s the difference between good energy policy and energy policy that sounds good. Now, excuse me why we go find Elizabeth.[/quote]
Your little act is dumb FYI.
Can anyone say “objectively” why an energy bill was promised to be delivered in January, but has still not gone into effect?
My guess is that the Speaker of the House believed that he had most of an energy bill prepared last December and that he was expecting almost all of the Democrats to fall in line with his plan. Was he simply too optimistic or have various Democrats actually surprised him by being unwilling to go along with his plan? I’m sure that he was not expecting many Republicans to support his plan.
Without partisan spin, can anyone try to calmly and “objectively” describe what it was that led to the major disconnect between the promise for January and the still-undetermined legislation? Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this. Again, please, I’m not looking for hostile comments — just some sort of reasonable explanation.
I can only help a little, Stamfordinho. The House and Senate bills have been very different. The House bill contains, in large part, a bill that certainly should have passed last year but didn’t. The Senate this year decided to move in a different direction. The House energy leadership (other than Backer) has worked closely with parties that represent what are commonly known as “public interests” as well as the traditional utilities. The Senate crafted its bill with folks like the merchant generators (NRG, et al), retail suppliers (Constellation, Direct Energy, et al.) and some others who have a product that they want to install in people’s homes (new meters, ice storage, etc.). In other words, the Senate chose to craft a bill with all the folks who benefit from the mess we are in rather than those who want to solve it. I don’t know how to put it more politely. And the House folks (Fontana, Nardello, et al.) have to their credit, held the line on not making the electric bill a giveaway center any more.
What passes for deregulation in this State (and others) is really a weak form of regulation, where we, the public, fund everyone’s campaign contributor (look them up, if you like) without the traditional utility rate accountability standard of prudent investment. This does not mean that we should seek to deregulate more, because dereg of electricity is a fantasy. Construction of large electric infrastructure is inherently political. Overall, if one thinks of electricity as a service, like tap water, rather than a commodity, like a hat or Chinese takeout, one will get to the right answer.
Whatever bill comes out will add money for fuel cells, which every literate person who is not corrupt knows is a goshdarn boondoggle, but I can’t fix everything all at once. Give me some time.
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