Democrats in the Connecticut General Assembly failed to muster sufficient votes to override Gov. M. Jodi Rell”™s veto of a massive energy bill that Rell maintains would have resulted in higher rates for residents and businesses.
Rell had also objected to the bill”™s relatively late introduction and debate in the legislative session that ended last month. Among other provisions, the bill would have created a new state energy and technology authority, provided discounted electricity rates for low-income households and created new incentives for the installation and use of solar panels.
“The proponents of this bill claim that it will reduce energy costs, spark the creation of a renewable energy industry in the state, create jobs and stabilize the electricity market,” Rell said in her veto message to Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz. “These claims are eerily reminiscent of the claims made about the electric industry deregulation bill which was presented some years ago as a panacea for Connecticut”™s energy problems. After a decade of exorbitant prices, however, that bill has yet to deliver on its promises. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Democrats, who hold a veto-proof majority, also let stand a Rell veto of a bill that would have taxed bonuses given to executives at banks that received bailout money under the federal TARP program. The bill had been intended to provide sufficient revenue to allow the state to exempt small businesses with less than $50,000 in profits from paying the state”™s annual $250 tax on business entities. Rell said the law would have been unlikely to withstand any court challenge.
Separately, the Connecticut General Assembly passed an “emergency” bill that extends by another year the state”™s real-estate conveyance tax, while exempting homes exchanged as a result of a foreclosure auction or short sale from being subject to the tax.
The legislature also passed a bill requiring the state Department of Economic and Community Development and the Department of Revenue Services to review triennially any tax-incentive program designed to create or retain jobs.
Democrats successfully overrode six Rell vetoes of other bills, including a potpourri environmental law that among other provisions:
Ӣ requires state wetland permits to be filed with municipalities;
Ӣ expands the list of permit applications that can be filed electronically;
Ӣ eliminates coastal management grants to municipalities;
Ӣ ends a requirement that the Department of Environmental Protection submit an annual report on implementation of the Coastal Management Act; and
Ӣ creates a $250 group fishing license for tax-exempt organizations to conduct group fishing events.
Over another Rell veto, Democrats enacted a bill that allows the state Department of Transportation to assess transportation facilities biennially rather than annually as had been the case; and no longer requires the state transportation commissioner to study all existing transportation facilities, allowing the use of reports prepared by other agencies instead.
Democrats also pushed through a bill that bars the state from inquiring into the criminal history of job applicants.
Rell also vetoed a bill that would have extended the state”™s support of the Municipal Interlocal Risk Management Agency, established in 2002 to offer workers”™ compensation insurance to cities and towns at a time when it was difficult to obtain affordable policies. Rell noted MIRMA has a $9.5 million deficit that is expected to worsen through 2015.
“This act postpones the inevitable ”“ the insolvency of MIRMA ”“ at the further expense to towns, injured workers and taxpayers,” Rell stated, in vetoing the bill. “No other insurer in the state would be permitted to operate with so little capital for so long.”
