Competitive
Resources, Inc.
628B South
Colony Road
Wallingford,
CT 06492
Hon.
Marc Ryan
April 30, 2003 Secretary, Office of Policy and Management
450
Capitol Avenue
Hartford,
CT 06106
Dear
Secretary Ryan.
On
April 3rd, at Public Hearings before the State Finance Committee, a
number of individuals (including myself) spoke about the negative impact the
citizens of our State would be subjected to if the monies from the current
Conservation and Load Management (CL&M) Fund were channeled into the
General Fund. Since my comments are a
matter of public record, I won’t bore you with the specific details I
presented.
It
has been brought to my attention that you appeared before the Finance, Revenue
and Bonding Committee of the General Assembly on April 4, 2003 and made several
statements related to the funds. As it
was relayed to me, you indicated that transferring the funds for a two-year
period would cause no harm here in Connecticut. Having been directly involved in the energy conservation industry
in this State for over 15 years, I would like to point out a few misconceptions
related to your comments.
Since
the late 1980’s, a solid infrastructure has been developed in support of
Connecticut’s proactive stance on energy efficiency in the residential,
commercial, industrial, and institutional sectors. The energy savings, peak load reductions, reduced air emissions,
and certainly, the dollars saved have been tremendous for our citizens. More importantly, because the programs
implemented were subjected to stringent cost-effectiveness tests, they have
been operated in such a way as to be deemed “profitable”.
On
the surface, suspending the current programs and channeling the dollars into
the General Fund may appear to be a wise move given the State’s current budget
crisis. However, if you examine the
underlying costs of such a move, the wisdom of this option quickly disappears. For example, we are a small firm with 12
employees in our Wallingford office. If
the CL&M Fund is suspended, there will be 12 individuals who will be
without jobs. Instead of productive
taxpayers, the State will see the unemployment roles rise. In addition, the energy conservation expertise
that we’ve help develop over the past few years will simply disappear. Multiply our situation by the many other
firms here in Connecticut and you’d be looking at hundreds of individuals in
the same position.
In
the meantime, the energy and environmental benefits that we’ve seen as a result
of the CL&M Fund would disappear. A
two-year suspension of the savings we enjoy as a result of our current efforts
would be lost forever. I can also
assure you that none of the experts here in the State would be able to wait two
years for the industry to rebound and we’d effectively have to start at square
one again.
I’ve
tried to keep my thoughts brief and to the point since I’m sure you heard from
many other interested parties on this subject.
I’d simply ask that you reconsider your position on this issue after
weighing the pros and cons a bit more carefully.
Thanks
for taking the time to hear my thoughts on the subject.
Sincerely,
Douglas
R. Cahill
Vice
President
Cc: Sen. Kevin Sullivan Rep. Moira Lyons
Sen. Martin Looney Rep. James Amann
Sen. Louis DeLuca Rep. Robert Ward
Sen. Eileen Daily Rep. Andrea Stillman
Sen. William Nickerson Rep. Richard Belden
Sen. Melodie Peters Rep.
Terry Backer
Sen. Toni Harp
Rep. William Dyson
Sen. Donald Williams Rep.
Patricia Widlitz