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News 12 Staff

CTPP222B_2025-02-22-16-52-55

I'm Mark Suddall. Welcome back to Power and Politics. State Senator Ryan Fazio joins me now, and welcome. Thanks, Mark. Well, now you are the ranking center on the Energy and Technology Committee, Connecticut, who, as we know, has the 2nd highest electric rates in the country. Where are we right now in Hartford with us? Well, we're at the beginning of the legislative session. I have co-authored an updated 6 point energy plan. That I'm very confident would reduce rates by $400 for the average family in the state. We know Connecticut's electric rates are just too darn high, and we know that state policies bear responsibility for them. So we need state leadership and state action in order to help ameliorate the situation, reduce costs for hardworking people in this state. The first part of our plan calls for cutting those public benefits charges from. Electric bill that's a hidden tax that funds over 40 different government programs through our electric bill rather than through the government budget like everything else requiring it to go through a cost benefit analysis to justify its worth. Instead you're just automatically taxed every single month, every single year in and out about 15 to 20% of your bill in those public benefits charges. It's really a hidden tax and we need to get that cost under control. And lawmakers are still talking about nuclear to kind of compensate here down the road. Yes, there are exciting things happening in the nuclear industry. About 40% of all Connecticut's power comes from the large nuclear facility in eastern Connecticut. It's zero carbon, so it's clean. It's the lowest cost form of zero carbon electricity at about 5 cents per kilowatt hour. In comparison, solar and wind can be 15 cents, a little more or a little less. So we need reliable, clean, and most importantly, affordable electricity on our grid, and there are exciting innovations happening in that industry. It's probably 10 years off from being. but it's a source of energy that now has really high levels of support from Democrats and Republicans, which is good news. So we need to find things that work like that and roll it out in an affordable and commercializable way. Now Marissa Gillette just had her confirmation hearing this week to stay on as the head of PUA. Do you do you like her? Is she good for the role and is she putting enough pressure on the utilities? I have a lot of respect for her. She's hard working. She's smart, and she takes seriously her role of protecting consumers in the state. I want to see a Pura that works well, provides a stable and predictable regulatory environment where consumers can be confident that they're not getting overcharged, where the utilities are not going to be able to overcharge us, and where there's also a predictable environment for investment because we need a reliable grid. We need those wires and substation. To be working when they're stressed the most by weather or other circumstances, so we need a balance. I want to see Pura act in a balanced way. I want to see all the commissioners work well together and in the interests of ratepayers and a reliable grid. So I have a lot of respect for Marissa, and I hope, I anticipate she'll be confirmed again and I hope she does even better job in her next term. Now we know certainly property taxes are quite high in our state, especially in Fairfield County as well. What's being done in Hartford about that? Well, not enough. That's why I introduced a plan that calls for a property tax cap in Connecticut. Connecticut has the 3rd highest property taxes in the entire country, according to a new study, and they keep, they keep going up just one direction, so we need to get those under control. I offered a plan that mirrors what was done in Massachusetts many years ago. It would cap property tax. at the greater of 2% or inflation while giving voters the ability to work around that cap with the 60% majority vote if they really think it's necessary for some reason, but also take away some of the 1400 unfunded state mandates that are imposed upon our towns and cities that are really responsible for the high property taxes that drive up costs for municipalities doing their work. Need a compromise like that in order to limit long term property taxes which are a huge burden on seniors, on people on fixed incomes, on low and middle income families, we have to get this under control, but we can. Other states have done it, and I think the plan that I introduced will go a long way towards providing relief. What are some of the other issues right now of this new legislative session? Well, the budget is going to be the biggest question that our state legislature and the governor addressed this year. As you know, 7 years ago our state passed these budget guard rails in bipartisan fashion that limit spending, limit debt issuance, and actually have served to limit taxes in a state where we've experienced some of the most major. Unbelievable tax increases 1015 years ago. Now there's a question of whether we should break that spending cap. We should pay down less of our debt and we have enormous debt burden. I'm very concerned that if we go that route, if we break the volatility cap and the spending cap, we use gimmicks to spend and borrow more money that we're going to return. To the tax increases of the past today's spending increases, if we break the budget guardrails today, it will mean higher taxes on middle class families in the future. So I want to fight to protect those budget guard rails. I am concerned that the leadership of the legislature and the governor have indicated that they're willing to break them, but I think we need to come together and protect them so we can actually cut taxes in the state in the future. In the 30 seconds we have left. With what's going on in Washington right now, the new administration, how does that affect people here in Connecticut or how will it affect people? Well, I think it remains to be seen. I think it's only 3 weeks into the new administration and as state leaders we have to be reactive to things that we see coming down from the federal level, hopefully act in a bipartisan fashion. In order to protect everyone in our state um hopefully we can reduce inflation and the cost of living in bipartisan fashion. Hopefully we can protect the public safety in bipartisan fashion, um, but we have to take everything as it comes and try to do the best we can with that. All right, Ryan, thank you so much. Thank you, Mark. Well, still ahead, state lawmakers push for changes when you watch your next movie.

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Hey, do you hate sitting through 20 minutes of previews of the movies? One state lawmaker does too. He wants theaters to tell you exactly when the film starts, but as News 12 Connecticut's John Craven reports, it could cost theaters a lot of money. When you go to the movies, a 1:30 start time can actually be a lot later because of all the previews. A lot of times it's 20 minutes before the movie starts, and that's a long time to be sitting there. But now one Connecticut lawmaker wants movies to start exactly on time. I had heard from, uh, one couple who said that they wound up having to pay their babysitter more by being delayed getting home. They hadn't factored in the. The time for the promos, uh, another couple said they lost their dinner reservation. Senate President Martin Looney's bill would hit theaters with $1000 fines. Many moviegoers like the idea. Sometimes I have enjoyed the previews, but you know sometimes. It's kind of boring. Well, some customers may like this idea, but movie theaters say it could be a logistical nightmare. At the state Capitol, theaters urged lawmakers to reject the bill. The ability to do that is. If it's not impossible, it's near impossible because the run time of those trailers changes every single week. Independent theaters like the Prospector in Ridgefield could be hit especially hard. The movie industry has not still fully recovered from the pandemic. CEO Ryan Wanke says the law could kill concession sales. And even kill movie theaters altogether. We don't want to give um the studios any reason not to play content in the theater if they think that nobody is watching their trailers anymore, they'll shift to possibly um streaming. Movie theaters hope that isn't a preview of things to come in Ridgefield, John Craven, News 12, Connecticut. And Senator Looney's bill has gained international attention in People magazine and the Daily Mail. Well, that's all our time. I'm Mark Sudall. Thanks for watching.

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State Rep. Matt Blumenthal and State Sen. Ryan Fazio join the show this week. 

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