Title 16 – Public Service Companies is called in the law (and they write it in all caps like this):
So if you want to know about how the government of Connecticut regulates Public Service Companies, also called “monopolies” refer yourself to “GSA: Chapter 277“. Yeah, I know, no one ever reads it. But that is the link.
Since I am the only one who has ever read it, as a public service, I will tell you what it says. It is surprising.
Most people believe the Public Utility Regulatory Authority or PURA regulates the prices Eversource charges its customers. Nope. I mean, they can stop price hikes, but that is NOT how they work.
How many people know there are three Commissioners of PURA? They are taxpayers appointed by the Governor with no really special requirements except professional experience of some sort, there is a long list to choose from, so most anyone would qualify. They are apparently chosen mostly for their political affiliation because the law prohibits all three from the same political party, and the Chairman, the guy with the power, is elected by majority of the three votes. Let me count, yep, I think it might be partisan.
The chairman is the one who hires and fires and approves funding. He is appointed for a five year term, or can be. He makes well over $100k as do many of his employees.
Any one of the commissioners can investigate a problem or complaint against a public utility, and that is how the monopoly is regulated. If there is a dispute between the utility and the PURA the utility has to pay for the whole dispute, the court, the arbitration, whatever.
Other than that there isn’t much regulation that is in the law itself, but I am sure there are off-the-books agreements of every kind. And they have some incentive to help the taxpayers who are also customers of the monopoly, but only in a round-about way. I think anyone reading here could design a better, simpler, cheaper system.
My favorite verse is 16c-2, not to be confused with 16-c (2) or 16 (c) (2). You can look it up yourself for a laugh, but it says the Chairman can appoint hearing officers from those he hired using the authority of another section, whose job it is to hear claims and advise the chairman. It sounds different in the original legalese but we could do without that section entirely and no one would ever miss it. I mean, do we really need to tell the guy why he hired hearing officers?
Oh there is a lot of other stuff too. Like price gouging is when a utility cuts labor to save money when the labor is needed to restore services to Connecticut customers. Only the law could define price gouging like that.
So if anyone wants to save money, be more efficient, help the consumer and the tax payer, just take a closer look at the PURA. Like very state agency that employs people (all of them) it is ripe for re-organization.