The energy bill that stirred controversy late in the 2010 legislative session with its proposal to create a state energy department will be revived Thursday by its two authors, the pair says.
State Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, and Rep. Vickie Nardello, D-Prospect, told the Connecticut Power & Energy Society at its legislative forum Wednesday night that they plan to re-introduce the same energy reform bill from last year’s session.
The Energy and Technology Committee – which Fonfara and Nardello co-chair – meets at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Legislative Office Building.
The bill would create a new agency or department in the governor’s administration dedicated to energy, and charges it with developing a comprehensive plan for Connecticut’s energy future including lowering costs while maintaining commitment to the environment and renewable energy development.
The bill also creates a renewable energy credit program for solar installations, sets energy efficiency standards for appliances and allows for special financing for private energy efficiency upgrades to furnaces and boilers.
Fonfara and Nardello pushed the bill through at the end of the 2010 legislative session, and it passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed the measure – even though she agreed with the majority of its tenets – because she felt the legislature didn’t give enough time for the bill to be properly vetted.
Current Gov. Dan Malloy said during his campaign that he would have signed the bill. However, he said he would have injected himself into the process so it would have arrived on the governor’s desk in a different form, instead of a monolithic, one-size-fits-all bill.
Despite the criticism that the bill is too large, Fonfara and Nardello say they prefer keeping the bill as one piece of legislation. That way, individual legislators would have to support the whole thing, even if they only agreed with some of the tenets.
