Connecticut lawmakers say James Judge, the CEO of Eversource, has agreed to testify at a public hearing next week. Legislation drafted would require Eversource to pay compensation to customers who lost power in widespread outages following Tropical Storm Isaias.
Senator Norman Needleman, chair the Energy and Technology Committee that will conduct the hearing, blames the company for cutting much of its frontline staff.
“They would argue that they made it in the interest of keeping costs under control. But on the other end of the spectrum senior managers made $50 million or $45 million last year on aggregate,” Needleman said.
He said Connecticut’s largest utility, Eversource, should pay for its poor response to the power outages, while the state’s second largest utility, United Illuminating, was better prepared.
“One predicted a level 4 outage and one predicted a level 3 outage. And if you go to their emergency operations plan that’s a big difference. Because that speaks to the amount of resources you have ready and waiting to come into the state. In my opinion we lost days because of the prediction,” he said.
State law currently does not require utility companies to pay compensation for customer losses caused by extended power outages.
Lawmakers expect to take action on the measure during a special session in September.
