Avangrid issued a cease-and-desist letter to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), calling for Chairman Marissa Gillett to stop issuing intermediary decisions under the guise of the executive secretary’s signature, following a similar letter by Eversource, saying the company has “experienced the brunt of these unlawful procedures,” in recent gas rate decisions issued by the state’s regulatory authority.
“PURA’s pervasive use of unlawful procedures, particularly those that obscure how and by whom ‘all procedural, evidentiary, and other intermediate rulings’ have been made – and continue to be made – in PURA’s dockets is a violation of due process rights of a magnitude that Avangrid has not experienced or observed in any regulatory jurisdiction in the U.S.,” attorney R. Scott Mahoney wrote in the January 22 letter. “Avangrid concurs with Eversource that PURA’s procedural practices reflect misconduct that is sweeping in scope.”
Avangrid claims that it has found 334 “substantive rulings” issued by Gillett alone, acting as the presiding officer, and issued under the executive secretary’s signature; 131 of those rulings “made significant determinations on fact and/or law causing prejudice to the legal rights of Avangrid companies.”
“None of these rulings indicate that any Executive Secretary ruling was made by the ‘presiding officer,’ rather than the full panel of the agency,” Mahoney wrote. “None of these rulings reflect a record of the vote of the members of the agency, as is mandated by state statute.”
Both Eversource and Avangrid allege that PURA Chairman Gillett has been issuing intermediate rulings on docket cases by herself acting as the presiding officer and obscuring that fact by issuing those rulings under the executive secretary’s signature, thereby giving the impression that it was a decision by the whole commission.
Had Gillett indicated that it was a ruling by the presiding officer, the utility companies could have appealed those rulings to a full commission vote; instead, in many instances, they had to wait until the matter was closed and file their appeal in court, several of which are pending.
Although PURA and the Attorney General’s Office initially said the utility companies were “confused,” and that the issue was “much ado about nothing,” PURA has opened a new docket to investigate Connecticut general statutes and make a “declaratory ruling” on the matter.
PURA launched this docket just weeks before Gillett is to go before the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee for reappointment, and the docket contains a provision barring any commissioners from discussing the matter. In his letter, Mahoney took umbrage at PURA opening this docket.
“This proceeding comes more than three months after the issue was first raised [Avangrid’s gas rate case] and a month after Avangrid has filed its appeal of the final decisions in that docket challenging those legal errors,” Mahoney wrote. “Given that the notice for this proceeding itself perpetuates certain legal errors that exist in the designation of a ‘presiding officer’ by the PURA Chairman, we find small comfort in PURA’s commencement of this docket.”
According to both cease-and-desist letters, the two utility giants are both angry over recent credit rating downgrades issued by agencies like S&P Global. According to Avangrid’s letter, Fitch ratings commented that Connecticut “is now probably the worst regulatory in the United States,” in a Bank of America Global Research publication published on January 21.
The utility companies argue these credit rating downgrades are directly attributable to PURA under Gillett’s leadership and will lead to increased costs for consumers going forward as the lower credit ratings mean it will cost more to raise capital for needed infrastructure projects, like switching homes to smart-meters.
Connecticut’s Office of Consumer Counsel, along with the heads of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee, Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, and Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, have scoffed at those warnings; Needleman and Steinberg have accused the utility companies of fear mongering, manipulating the rating agencies, and trying to get Gillett fired.
Avangrid is calling on PURA to cease having a single commissioner act as presiding officer without proper designation; allowing that presiding officer to issue rulings and orders beyond statutory limitations; failing to record votes of PURA commissioners; and “depriving parties of their rights to appeal rulings to the full panel by concealing that the rulings were issued by a single commissioner.”
The company also claims to have documented evidence of improper communications between Gillett and the EOE Director and staff, and that Gillett “unlawfully” moved staff between PURA and the Office of Education, Outreach and Enforcement (EOE), “violating the principle that staff cannot act in both an advocacy role and a decisional role in the same docket.”
“Avangrid recognizes that the concerns raised herein are serious and with broad impact,” Mahoney wrote. “We are compelled to take the unprecedented step to voice our concerns directly and concisely to the full commission and to ask that PURA take immediate remedial steps to come into compliance with Connecticut statutory law and regulation.”
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The gas utility is owned by Eversource. Years ago the utility was also owned by Connecticut Light & Power. The state directed the Department of Utility Control Authority, (now PURA) to dissolve CL&P’s ownership. The result was an independent utility, Yankee Gas. When CL&P was incorporated into Eversource, so was Yankee Gas. Maybe it’s time to reorganize PURA and divest Eversource.
Avangrid’s gas utility territories (Southern CT Gas and CT Natural Gas) are not owned by Eversource. Only Yankee Gas was folded back into Eversource)
What needs also investigating is why are attorney general is so focused on illegal residents of this stste and illegal immigration when we buy are electricity from another state and the rule of helping those in need. Which to me is another way of getting funds that are unconstitutional in electricity. The attirney general should be focused on the invalidy of these by laws. There should be public hearings and they were not. By mail only advising of electricity of rate hikes at the last minute. No time to defnd. Connecticut is the constitutional state. Measuring whats going on it is far from it. NUCLEAR ENERGY IS THE SOLUTION. PERIOD.
Govenor of the state of Connecticut. Heres the solution to energy. Nuclear energy. Cut the bullshit out by allowing the residence of this state bombarding us rate hikes that make no fuken sence. Nuclear energy would would hlp not only now but future energy. Stop asking governmnt help, when we have the solution. Not windmills or solar energy or electric cars or electric gadgets. NUCLEAR ENERGY, Dumbo.