Blumenthal is acting like he’s the AG again
During his 20 years as Connecticut’s “eternal general,” Richard Blumenthal repeatedly declined appeals to accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor. While his chances for election would have been excellent, the governor’s office requires more difficult work than simple posturing. So, in 2011, Blumenthal ran for the U.S. Senate instead and was elected. But this week he seemed to want to be governor after all.
For suddenly Blumenthal was all over the news denouncing electric utility Eversource for its supposedly inadequate response to the previous week’s tropical storm.
The senator went to the company’s headquarters and demanded that its chief executive resign and that the company “clean house,” make refunds to customers, and generally abase itself before his towering righteousness.
Connecticut’s six other members of Congress have had little to say about the storm performance of Eversource and the state’s other major electric company, United Illuminating. Maybe they realize that the issue is outside congressional jurisdiction, entirely the business of a formerly obscure state agency, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. Maybe they don’t crave publicity as much, or maybe piling on just for publicity might embarrass them. With the federal government in a shambles itself, maybe they have decided to concentrate on the jobs they were elected to do.
Governor Ned Lamont hardly needed the rude introduction to the utility agency, since it came amid state government’s general insolvency and the disruption and impoverishment caused by efforts to contain the virus epidemic. So the governor began with his own ritual denunciation of Eversource and UI, calling them unprepared for the storm.
Quickly realizing that denunciation wasn’t enough, Lamont offered a relevant proposal — that the utility agency should link the companies’ authorized rates of investment return to their storm repair performance.
But state Attorney General William Tong quickly followed in the manner of the “eternal general,” condemning the utilities for their “failed storm response” and moving to intervene in the utility agency’s investigation. That investigation has barely begun, but like the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland” “Sentence first, verdict afterwards” — Tong declared himself eager to “seek fines, penalties, and injunctive relief” and to “oppose the utilities’ requests for profits and reimbursement of storm-related costs.”
As most of Connecticut sweated without power for days, enterprising reporting by the Journal Inquirer disclosed that Eversource’s five top executives are splitting $40 million in annual compensation. But no one fuming at the company, including the governor, remarked that the utility agency has jurisdiction over those salaries and that the governor and General Assembly appoint the authority’s three members.
Of course Senator Blumenthal didn’t have to come back to Connecticut to call attention to catastrophic failure. There is still plenty of it going unremarked in Washington, like the policy to continue the war in Afghanistan, now in its 20th year.
In Afghanistan the United States has accomplished only mass death and destruction and incurred incalculable expense. The religious crazies the war was supposed to eradicate are stronger than ever and will take full control of Afghanistan as soon as U.S. forces withdraw.
President Obama said he wanted to get out of Afghanistan but stayed in and nobody seemed to care. President Trump says he wants to get out but also stays in, with little objection. Blumenthal keeps voting for war appropriations, maybe because Connecticut does more military contracting per capita than any other state.
Demagoging the electric companies is easy. Having done it since his days as “eternal general,” Blumenthal himself should be tiring of it. But if even a senator won’t complain about 20 years of failed war, who will?