Letter to Jeffrey D. Butler President & CEO Connecticut Light & Power

Letter

September 3, 2011

Jeffrey D. Butler President & CEO Connecticut Light & Power PO Box 270 Hartford, Connecticut 06141-0270

Dear Jeff,

I am writing to you to share some concerns I have begun to hear from constituents in several towns across my District as to Connecticut Light & Power's ability under state law to recoup losses via rate increases. While I know and understand that your first priority remains restoration of power to your customers throughout Connecticut, I wanted to bring these issues to your attention in the hopes that you may be able to alleviate these concerns now.

Tropical Storm Irene caused serious damage throughout the state and seriously impacted your company's ability to deliver electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the state. Utilizing all of your own personnel assets, bringing in crews from other states and working diligently over the last many days, much progress has been made in clearing roads as well as replacing broken poles, transformers, and downed lines. While I certainly understand that complete recovery and restoration efforts takes time, particularly to ensure the safety of the linemen and crews, as I am sure you know, the level of frustration among customers and municipal leaders has been palpable.

This frustration has been further aggravated by news reports that Connecticut state statutes allow Connecticut Light & Power to recoup losses associated with such outage events through rate increases. I and my staff have already heard from several constituents outraged that the state's utility companies would even consider such an option and most have cited the fact the Connecticut residents already pay some of the highest electrical rates in the country.

It is my understanding that Connecticut Light & Power does have insurance to recover the costs associated with these types of natural disasters and I believe that you have announced that you will be utilizing those resources to recoup the expenses that you have incurred during the recovery and restoration efforts. I would appreciate clarification on how you plan to proceed and hope that you will also make every effort to make this information available to your customers.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I look forward to your response and to continuing our work together.

Sincerely,

ROSA L. DeLAURO Member of Congress

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