Seeking to break out of a caged pen to increase their lowly legislative gains, Republican lawmakers have seized upon zooey utility costs as a supercharged wedge issue against Democrats with the November election on the horizon.
Your favorite (or maybe not) utilities United Illuminating and Southern Connecticut Gas, sloth to tree utility costs, have come under fire by state Republican leadership for sponsoring Bridgeport Energy Conservation Day at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo this Saturday, free to Bridgeport residents with all kinds of goodies: free food, rides, Glow Wild tix for all kids, prizes, energy conservation scavenger hunt, energy-saving tips, free home energy assessment.
GOP Senators Ryan Fazio and Stephen Harding argue Democrats believe everything is just ducky with the utility rate mess.
No word if the zoo is setting up a special enclosure for rate payers to ogle utility suits. Hmm, maybe next to the tiger exhibit. Watch out for the spray zone!
GOP statement:
Sen. Ryan Fazio, Ranking Senator on the Energy and Technology Committee, and Sen. Stephen Harding issued the following statement regarding a “free” event this Saturday at the Beardsley Zoo that United Illuminating and Southern Connecticut Gas are paying for “from a charge on customer energy bills.”
“It’s outrageous. Our sky-high electric bills are paying for people to go to the zoo? You can’t make this up. Connecticut Democrats say the public benefits charges on our bills are necessary for utility and climate change related activities. So how is a zoo trip related to that?”
For months, Republican lawmakers have been pushing for a special session to provide relief to ratepayers.
Well, it really can’t be denied that rate payers shouldn’t have state-concocted stealth taxes affecting their bills. So, the Republicans are right to nit-pick about our “Republicrat” legislature using utility bills to fund policy initiatives and PR programs that benefit non-profits, however valuable and worthy the latter might be…
But this begs the question; should indicated energy conservation and green energy initiatives be backburnered even as the environment continues to be corrupted by our society’s perseveration in dependence upon climate-lethalizing fossil fuels?
Well, of course the state needs to do its part in mitigating the environmental damage and progress of dangerous climate change by limiting our greenhouse gas production in the course of powering our state’s economy and lifestyle. But we should not be doing it in the tenuous, meek, miserly, stealthy, haphazard manner that our Republicrat governor and legislature have chosen. All that we are doing is throwing the good money of ratepayers after bad in order to accommodate the electric-GAS company’s foot-dragging progress in transitioning from the use of their fossil-fuel assets to the use of UTILITY-OWNED sun, wind , and water power. All that they are doing is prefinancing the perpetuation of UTILITY-perpetrated exploitation of ratepayers into and beyond an envisioned green-energy future…
Why are the governor and legislature playing utility-regulation and taxation games with the citizen-ratepayers of Connecticut?! There is only one logical scenario — they are invested in these utilities themselves, on a personal, financial level, and protecting their selfish interests by forcing ratepayers to invest in their exploiters through stealth taxes and dysregulation of the utilities…
There is something smelly going on in Hartford, and its being tossed back and forth between the aisles for the selfish interests of the people that are supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the people of the state.
Essential utilities should be owned and operated by and for the people (the state). that is the only way to mitigate the untenable economic effects of the private ownership of the regulated utilities….