Governor Healey and Bipartisan New England States Demand FERC Reject Profit Increase for Transmission Owners

Governor Healey and Bipartisan New England States Demand FERC Reject Profit Increase for Transmission Owners 

All six New England governors submit joint statement opposing major profit increase for transmission utilities 

BOSTON — Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey joined with a bipartisan group of New England governors to demand the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reject a proposal by New England transmission owners to significantly increase their allowed profits at the expense of ratepayers. Governor Healey joined Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Maine Governor Janet Mills, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, and Vermont Governor Phil Scott in a joint statement filed with FERC. 

“We fear this unreasonable increase in transmission rates will needlessly burden the region’s households and businesses, impair our economic competitiveness, and undermine our efforts to deploy transmission investment that is needed to maintain reliability, improve affordability, and access additional electricity supplies,” said the Governors. “We therefore urge the Commission to scrutinize—and ultimately reject—this proposal, paying particular attention to its ratepayer impacts. We further urge the Commission to ensure that any future proposed changes to the NETOs’ ROE only be approved if they carefully balance and reflect current financial market conditions, regional economic realities, and the overarching need to protect ratepayers from unjustified cost increases.” 

On April 30, New England transmission owners filed a proposal with FERC requesting an increase in their base return on equity (ROE) percentage from 9.57%, the rate FERC just recently ordered in a March 19 decision, to 11.39% for transmission investment in the New England region. In this March decision, FERC ordered the transmission utilities to cut their allowed ROE and issue more than $1 billion in refunds to customers, after years of advocacy by New England states. Transmission rates in New England are more than double the average in other organized markets.