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Given a choice between protecting environmental goals or energy affordability, Rep. Jonathan Steinberg (D-Westport) insinuated he’d prefer the former during a June 6 legislative session review hosted by environmental activist group Connecticut League of Conservation Voters
“If affordability remains the dominant factor in setting energy policy, going forward, we’re going to have a problem,” he stated.
Despite Connecticut’s high electric rates, second only to Hawaii in the nation, the representative lamented that climate programs funded through the Public Benefits Charge on ratepayer bills “may be on the chopping block next year.” In short, the public pressure to reduce electric bills could derail Connecticut’s clean energy priorities.
By favoring affordability, the state risks “making sound strategic investments in our future, particularly with infrastructure,” Rep. Steinberg argued. Moreover, he then warned that “ratepayers will have to pay their share” for such projects.
Delaying those investments, he suggested, would be a costly mistake: “But if we wait for our propitious moment in which we can make these expenditures, it will likely be too late, because, as you know, most of the large capital investments we’re talking about to upgrade the grid or to expand our transmission network require large sums of money and a lot of time.”
For Rep. Steinberg, affordability isn’t a policy goal — it’s an obstacle. Reflecting on his first session on the Environment Committee, he took issue with lawmakers daring to listen to constituents who are struggling to pay their utility bills.
According to Rep. Steinberg, the energy debate formerly rested on a “three-legged stool of affordability, environmental responsibility and reliability. And we’re never going to let reliability fall by the wayside.” But this year, he said, “Frankly, environmental responsibility was on the table, if you will, and I was very concerned.”
Rep. Steinberg’s concern wasn’t about people choosing between heating their homes and buying groceries, but that “everybody from the governor to caucus leadership, everybody was on the affordability wagon.” His role, he said, was to “move the ball forward”; instead, he found himself “primarily in a defensive posture trying to keep us from making bad decisions.”
One of those “bad decisions,” in Rep. Steinberg’s view, was offering ratepayers relief from public benefit surcharges buried in their utility bills that fund “green” subsidies and regulatory projects. He admitted these charges only drew attention because they were finally broken out on electric bills.
Prior to 2023, these charges were bundled into the overall “delivery” portion of customer bills, making them less noticeable. That changed when the legislature passed a bill requiring utilities to list the Public Benefits Charge as a separate line item.
“So, everybody had huge bills, and they want to know why — they look to the Public Benefits Charge,” he said. “And that became sort of the target of everything we were talking about this session.”
Rather than acknowledge that ratepayers have a right to question these costs, Rep. Steinberg framed public scrutiny as a problem, one that made “my Republican colleagues gleeful because they’ve been trying to get rid of some of these charges for decades.” (Apparently, protecting legacy energy subsidies is more important than respecting the people forced to pay for them.)
He did acknowledge that some reforms made it into the final bill — such as giving utilities “more flexibility in procurement” and enabling the rollout of AMI or smart meters. However, he claimed there is a possibility of higher energy bills on the horizon, saying:
“And I view that as my challenge in the next year or two, is to get us back on track, to remind people that balance is very important and environmental responsibility cannot be sacrificed, and that unfortunately, rate payers are going to have to pick up their share of moving forward with investing in our energy future that, frankly, we don’t really have a choice about.”
To Rep. Steinberg, Connecticut residents — already struggling with inflation, taxes, and utility bills — are expected to sit tight and pay up while legislators “move the ball forward” on an agenda they don’t understand, can’t afford, and have no meaningful say in shaping.
Rep. Steinberg closed by urging environmental advocates to “stay focused and vigilant” to ensure “affordability doesn’t crowd out other good considerations.” In other words, climate goals come first, and if your electric bill keeps climbing, that’s just the price of progress.
