Fazio presses Lamont on CT's electric bill fees at bond commission

nhregister.com · Paul Hughes · September 8, 2026

# Fazio presses Lamont on CT's electric bill fees at bond commission

Author: Paul Hughes Published: 2026-09-08T19:43:32+00:00 Source: nhregister.com (nhregister.com) Language: en

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# Fazio challenges CT’s electric-bill fees as bond commission approves $145 million

By Paul Hughes, Staff WriterSep 8, 2026

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Gov. Ned Lamont listens as Greenwich state Sen. Ryan Fazio, the Republican candidate for governor, second from the left, stresses a point concerning public benefit charges on electric bills during a State Bond Commission meeting Tuesday at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford

Paul Hughes/Hearst Connecticut Media

HARTFORD — Republican rival Ryan Fazio confronted Gov. Ned Lamont over public benefit charges on electric bills during a State Bond Commission meeting on Tuesday.

Fazio, a Greenwich state senator and commission member, renewed his call to end or reduce these fees tacked onto electric bills to pay for state and federal government programs, policies and initiatives. He also called for reductions in the supply portion of bills.

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The high cost of electricity in Connecticut is a top issue in the campaign for governor. Lamont and Fazio are offering competing plans for lowering electric rates.

The official setting of the bond commission meeting presented Fazio with a public opportunity to raise the hot-button topic directly in the presence of Lamont and possibly engage him in debate. The two gubernatorial contenders sat four seats apart.

Lamont also used the occasion of what could be the last bond commission meeting before the Nov. 3 election to do some politicking, too. In opening remarks, the two-term Democratic governor highlighted his administration's effort to contain fixed costs that drive increases in state spending, including pension contributions.

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"My North Star is usually doing everything we can to hold fixed costs as a percentage of our overall budget because what I always worry about is we have fairly volatile revenues and escalating fixed costs puts a lot more risk into the system," Lamont said. "And over the last seven or eight years we've been able to bring down our fixed costs, especially when it comes to pensions, to some degree."

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Before participating in the meeting Tuesday, Treasurer Eric Russell announced another $1.3 billion in state surplus funds had been deposited into the state-run pension funds for state employees and public school teachers. This deposit means $11 billion of the long-term retirement debt has been paid off early over the last seven fiscal years, according to the treasurer's office.

The first item on the agenda Tuesday was a $125 million bond allocation to cover costs for hardship assistance programs for low-income households, including a moratorium on electricity shutoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second item was a $20 million allocation to fund the state's electric vehicle charging program.

The two initiatives were previously supported through public benefit charges. In a bipartisan deal, the governor and legislature approved legislation in 2025 to use $300 million in state bond funds to partially offset those charges for two years. Fazio negotiated the temporary bond funding with the governor's office and the Democratic majority. The 2025 compromise authorized $250 million for offsetting the hardship program costs and $50 million for the electric vehicle charging program.

Fazio reiterated his longstanding call for eliminating or scaling back public benefit charges when Lamont called for a vote on the $125 million allocation for reducing the costs of hardship protection measures. He also said the bipartisan compromise that he helped to craft falls short of what is needed.

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"The bonding obviously will provide a temporary cost shift from people's bills to people's future taxes in the state," said Fazio, the ranking Senate Republican on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. "That was negotiated but in the long-term in order to provide actual relief, we'll need to permanently reduce the costs, whether they're in the public benefits charge or in the supply charge of our bill."

He acknowledged public benefits charges have decreased due to the temporary bond funding but predicted those costs will bounce back up soon enough. He also said some of the fees and costs embedded in supply charges are rising fast.

"So, I'd like to take the occasion to just say while these costs will shift some of the costs in people's electric bills temporarily that it's a good time to remind ourselves that permanently we need to reduce many of these costs in both the public benefits charges and the supply portion of our bills, as well," Fazio said.

His comments elicited no direct response from Lamont and Fazio joined the rest of the commission in voting to approve the $125 million. Eversource Energy will receive $77.1 million and $47.9 million will go to United Illuminating. The bond commission approved the first $125 million allocation to the state's two largest power distribution companies last August.

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Eversource will receive approximately $16 million of the $20 million for the electric vehicle charging program that was also unanimously approved Tuesday and UI will get $4 million. The previous $30 million for the electric vehicle program was allocated last August.

Reporters questioned Lamont concerning Fazio's comments on the public benefit charges during a news conference that followed the bond commission meeting.

Lamont said he believed that having ratepayers foot the hardship costs that had accumulated between 2016 and 2020 was inappropriate, and he was under the impression that Fazio did, too.

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He said he considers many of the programs supported through public benefit charges to be valuable. But he also expressed agreement with Fazio on the shifting of those program costs from electric bills to the state budget, saying that he was open to debating whether ratepayers or taxpayers should be paying for them.

"Generally speaking, I think just moving from the ratepayers to bonding or moving to the general fund is just moving from one column to the other, and people still have to pay," Lamont said.

Sep 8, 2026

Reporter

Paul Hughes has covered government, politics and elections from the state Capitol since 1998, spanning the administrations of four governors. He is a veteran journalist with nearly 40 years of experience in Connecticut. A 1986 graduate of Southern Connecticut State University and lifelong state resident, he has reported for the Hamden Chronicle, the Record-Journal and the Republican-American.

find Paul Hughes on twitter email Paul Hughes (paul.hughes@hearstmedi

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Connecticut News

September 2026