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| Lamont and Gillett |
They were very damaging admissions on the part of PURA (Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority), a state agency that, captained by Marissa Gillett, sought to lower energy prices by imposing price controls on the state’s energy distributors.
In a front page, top of the fold Hartford Courant story –
“CT agency at center of controversy suddenly releases emails at center of
long-standing dispute” – we were told, “In another twist in a contentious
disagreement over missing documents, the Public Utility Regulatory Authority
reversed itself Wednesday and acknowledged the existence of directives limiting
the ability of commissioners to consult staff experts directly on regulatory
questions.”
The Courant has been following the story through it various
permutations. The “contentious disagreement” between the energy distributors
and PURA chairman Marissa Gillett has become a matter of court litigation, and
litigation usually turns on supportive evidence of legal claims.
Partly owing to adverse publicity and a pending law suit
brought by Connecticut’s two largest utilities, Eversource and Avangrid, the
owner of United Illuminating, Gillett has submitted her resignation as chairman
of PURA to Governor Ned Lamont, one of her most ardent supporters.
“While I have never shied away from principled
disagreement,” Gillett noted in her resignation letter, “ the escalation of
disputes into a cycle of lawsuits and press statements pulls attention and
resources away from what matters most: keeping rates just and reasonable,
improving service, and planning a resilient, reliable energy future.”
Gillett’s unsurprising resignation from PURA followed
quickly upon the heels of a letter written to Democrat Speaker of the state
House Matt Ritter by Republican leader in the House Vince Candelora requesting
“that you [Ritter] convene a Select Committee of Inquiry to investigate and
consider her [Gillett’s] conduct, and report to the State House on its
findings, including whether sufficient grounds exist for impeachment.”
In the end, Gillett found herself caught in a tangled
political net of her own making. The case against PURA and Gillett had been
strengthened. Attorney General William Tong, statutorily obliged in court cases
to represent Governor Ned Lamont and his administrators in various agencies
such as PURA, threw in the towel recently and effectively surrendered to
lawyers prosecuting the case against Gillett. And at long last Gillett found
“missing” documentation showing that she was tangentially involved in the
writing of a compromising op-ed that seemed to support the contention brought
against her by two Connecticut energy distributors that decisions were made
against the two companies unilaterally by a biased Gillett.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was Candalora’s letter
requesting that Ritter “convene a Select Committee of Inquiry to investigate
and consider her [Gillett’s] conduct, and report to the State House on its
findings, including whether sufficient grounds exist for impeachment.”
Gillett’s resignation from office obviates the need of
impeachment, since the only punishment for impeachment is removal from office.
But the kind of congressional inquiry proposed by Candelora would have other
objects in view.
In a luminous column in the Courant, Kevin Rennie argues
that Gillett’s leave-taking should not end the PURA investigation. President
Nixon’s resignation in 1974, we all remember, did not a congressional Watergate
investigation that provided an impetus for the political elevation of Republican
Senator Lowell Weicker here in Connecticut.
“There will be a desire,” Rennie writes, to let this scandal
end with Gillett’s resignation. It must be resisted… The search for the truth
[amid a tangle of lies and evasions] is too important to allow Gillett’s
resignation to draw another shroud over this sordid affair.”
Among the questions that should be pondered by Candelora’s
proposed Select Committee of Inquiry is this one: When did Attorney General
William Tong – statutorily required to act in the best interest of the governor
and the heads of state agencies -- know that Gillett likely lied under oath to
legislators, and why did he not warn Lamont of the bottomless gorge of public
deception yawning at his feet?
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