Governor Lamont and Bipartisan New England States Urge FERC To Reject Profit Increase for Transmission Owners

All Six New England Governors Submit Joint Statement Opposing Major Profit Increase for Transmission Utilities

(HARTFORD, CT) - Governor Ned Lamont today joined with a bipartisan group of New England governors to urge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reject a proposal by New England transmission owners to significantly increase their allowed profits at the expense of ratepayers.

FERC is the federal agency that regulates the transmission of electricity from where it is generated to where it's used-in other words, the power grid that crosses state lines. FERC sets the rules for how much profit transmission owners, including utilities like Eversource and United Illuminating, are allowed to collect on top of the fees they charge for use of this grid. Those charges flow directly into the electricity bills that Connecticut families and businesses pay every month.

On April 30, New England transmission owners filed a proposal with FERC requesting an increase in their base return on equity (ROE), which is that guaranteed profit rate on top of transmission costs, from 9.57% to 11.39%. That increase would come entirely at the expense of ratepayers. This request came just weeks after FERC issued a March 19 decision ordering transmission utilities to cut their allowed profits and issue more than $1 billion in refunds to customers, which was a victory for Connecticut families after years of advocacy by New England states. Transmission rates in New England are already more than double the average in other organized markets.

Governor Lamont joined Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Maine Governor Janet Mills, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, and Vermont Governor Phil Scott in a joint statement filed today with FERC.

"We fear this unreasonable increase in transmission rates will needlessly burden the region's households and businesses, impair our economic competitiveness, and undermine our efforts to deploy transmission investment that is needed to maintain reliability, improve affordability, and access additional electricity supplies," the six governors wrote in their filing. "We therefore urge the Commission to scrutinize-and ultimately reject-this proposal, paying particular attention to its ratepayer impacts. We further urge the Commission to ensure that any future proposed changes to the NETOs' ROE only be approved if they carefully balance and reflect current financial market conditions, regional economic realities, and the overarching need to protect ratepayers from unjustified cost increases."

**Download: Filing from six New England governors to FERC