Senate Passes Bill to Allow South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority To Bid On Aquarion | CT News Junkie
June 26, 2024
As published in the CT News Junkie:
HARTFORD, CT – As the state Senate met in special session on Wednesday to pass legislation to tie up loose ends from this year’s regular session, Republican senators took issue with a provision that would allow a Connecticut water utility to bid on the sale of another water utility.
Senate Bill 501, an omnibus bill which includes provisions related to other controversial measures including the state’s car tax as well as oversight of school construction, also includes a provision to allow the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (RWA) to bid on the Aquarion Water Company, which Eversource has expressed interest in selling off.
Republicans voiced their opposition to the provision, stating that its inclusion in the special session was inappropriate due to a lack of public input on the proposal and its nature as a non-emergency measure. They also requested that the bill be acted upon separately because one of their members, Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, had to recuse himself because his day job as a corporate attorney for Eversource represents a conflict of interest.
By keeping the bill under the umbrella of the omnibus legislation, Kissel would be unable to vote on the other items in the bill for which he had no conflict.
Republican senators offered two different amendments to remove the RWA provision from the omnibus legislation. The first amendment sought to separate the sections of the bill dealing with RWA into a separate bill, and the second amendment would have struck the RWA section from the bill all together.
“We’re talking about the institution [of the Senate], how important the public hearing process is to hear from the public, hearing their concerns and addressing their concerns as policymakers in this building,” said Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield. “We owe our constituents an ability to have a discussion, to have notice, to have public hearings on these important issues.”
Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, took issue with the format of the special session to pass nonemergency measures that sidestep the normal legislative process.
“When that respect for the timeframe of the session is ignored, by year after year, repeated special sessions, where the majority can come back with no safeguards that exist in the normal session period … our ability to have a say in the outcome of things goes away,” Sampson said. “In special session, my ability as a state senator to get up here and offer amendments, make a case, even filibuster if must be, is negated, and I believe it’s unfair.”
Both amendments failed on party-line votes, 9-19 with 8 senators absent or not voting.
Eversource announced its interest in selling off Aquarion in March.

Aquarion was acquired by Eversource in 2017, reportedly for more than $1.6 billion. However, after sustaining losses of over $440 million in 2023, Eversource decided to focus on its core electric and natural gas distribution and transmission businesses, pivoting away from water distribution and clean energy projects.
One of the concerns regarding the sale of Aquarion relates to a perceived lack of accountability.
The RWA is not subject to oversight from the Public Utilities Regulation Authority (PURA), which oversees the state’s investor-owned public utilities, of which Aquarion is the largest. The RWA instead receives input from a 60-member council with representatives from the municipalities in the New Haven area served by the RWA. Those member towns elect five members of the 11-person board of governors.
Despite the possible removal of Aquarion from PURA’s purview, Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said the RWA’s governing structure would still provide consumer-driven oversight for Aquarion.
“Well, [the Public Utilities Regulation Authority] has the authority to decide whether to sign off on the process altogether,” Looney said. “If it is accomplished, if the bid is successful, then the entity would come under the regulatory structure of the Regional Water Authority, expanded to include the Aquarian towns. That authority is very much consumer based and town based, in that each of the communities served currently by the regional water authority has community based representation. I think the RWA Board and the Policy Board is equally sensitive on a matter of rates as PURA is.”
The omnibus bill passed the Senate on a 20-9 vote, with 7 senators not voting. It heads to the House of Representatives for tomorrow’s special session.