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10/14/2020 08:45 AMState Senator Norm Needleman (D-33), who is running for a second term, said he’s is proud of the bills the Connecticut General Assembly passed during its Sept. 29 through Oct. 1 special session.
Needleman serves as chair of the Energy and Technology Committee and vice chair of the Planning and Development Committee, and is a member of the Commerce, Transportation, and Finance, Revenue, and Bonding committees. He is also first selectman of Essex.
The 33rd State Senate District serves Chester, Clinton, Colchester, Deep River, East Haddam, East Hampton, Essex, Haddam, Lyme, Portland, Westbrook, and western Old Saybrook.
As Energy and Technology Committee chair, Needleman said he worked particularly hard on an energy bill dubbed the Take Back Our Grid Act. The bill passed 136 to 4 in the House and unanimously in the Senate.
“It was two months’ worth of incredibly intensive work that I thought was for the good of all the ratepayers in Connecticut,” he said. “After the rate increase, and after the storm, and knowing that we were not able to pass anything in the regular session, this was a good bill at the right time.”
Among other things, the bill requires utility companies to issue account credits to ratepayers who are without power for more than 96 hours and to compensate those who lose food and medicine. It also directs the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) to create performance-based regulations focused on meeting customers’ needs.
“[M]ore than the punitive measures, which are in the bill, we were very focused on beginning to chip away at the regulatory framework that seems to have worked for the advantage of the utilities for a very long time,” Needleman said. In addition, “we wanted to decouple executive compensation from rates. I’m not looking to regulate how much somebody earns, but I also don’t want a $20 million salary to come on the back of the ratepayers of Connecticut.”
The composition of Eversource’s board of trustees was another focus for Needleman.
“I felt that if they ever were going to do another merger or acquisition in the state of Connecticut, I wanted the board to reflect the population mix of all the markets in which they serve,” he said. “We represent 40 percent of their ratepayers in the overall company; I want 40 percent of the seats on the board.”
Needleman, who is the owner of Tower Laboratories, recused himself from the vote on the revisions to Connecticut’s commercial property transfer law, known as the Transfer Act. The law regulates commercial properties that generate hazardous waste by requiring those businesses to disclose the environmental conditions of the property and, in some cases, requiring the business to conduct investigation and remediation.
“It was a very, very big disincentive to any economic development in the state,” Needleman said of the law before the revisions. “So we’re moving to a new set of guidelines that will be as stringent environmentally but more in keeping with the way other states treat the problem...[I]t’s going to make a huge difference for economic development and real estate—commercial, industrial real estate development in the state of Connecticut.”
The legislature also passed a bill allowing registrars of voters to begin processing absentee ballots prior to Election Day, an environmental justice bill, a bill making the state’s hemp growing program consistent with federal law, and a number of others.
“I’m very proud of what we did” in the special session, he said, calling the bills “broadly bipartisan.”
The Energy and Technology Committee is “probably the most complicated committee in the legislature,” Needleman said. Regulation, together with “our commitment to renewables, our commitment to be a leader in energy efficiency—those things all have to be added into the mix of how everybody is guaranteed to have lights at an affordable price.
“I’m very focused on the equity and affordability side of this,” he continued. “[M]y life doesn’t change if it costs me a little bit more. But it [has] a major impact on people in the cities and poor rural people in Connecticut, when we rush ahead regardless of costs, so I’m very focused on...doing everything we can to make rates equitable and fair, and still meet the environmental goals.”
As well as seeking equity, “I have a core firm belief in the fact that the United States has, up until now, attained the role of global leadership on the front of a wide array of issues and we can’t preach to anyone else or try to lead anyone else if we’re not leading ourselves,” he said. “We’re the most innovative country in the world. Connecticut is one of the most innovative states in the country. So we want to lead.”
Social Issues
“[W]ith the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the change in the makeup of the Supreme Court is obviously very concerning,” Needleman said. “And particularly concerning to me [are] the rights of women. I know where I stand on women’s issues and women’s reproductive rights—they’re inviolable, as far as I’m concerned. These are issues that I’ve been supportive of for well over 45 years and I want to make sure that we continue to do that.”
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, “Connecticut has to be the new firewall,” he said.
Needleman turned his attention to Brendan Saunders, his Republican challenger.
Saunders “keeps talking about being a Reagan Republican on economics, but he never talks about what he would do—because cutting is not a way to prosperity, and there’s no path to doing that,” Needleman said. “He doesn’t know the budget so he doesn’t understand how tight it is right now, and how pared down the state workforce is.
Needleman also questioned Saunders’s stance on civil rights. He said voters have a right to know where candidates stand on women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and other social justice issues.
“[Gay rights have] been civil rights for me since 1970,” Needleman said. “When I came of age, politically, these were critical issues that grant people equality.
“I really want him to tell people where he stands...[Y]ou can’t be silent on this,” he continued. “If Connecticut is the new firewall, you have to have an opinion.”
“I’ve dedicated this last phase of my life to public service,” Needleman said. “I take no money from my job in the Senate. I take a token amount of money from the Town [of Essex]. I love serving the public. It’s my way of giving back to the community.”
Serving as state senator was an opportunity that opened up to him, he said, and “I’m going to do it for as long as I can for as long as the voters want me to do it...I put the people of my district and of my town first.
“I want to make sure that whether people agree with me or not, I listen to everybody,” he continued. “I do everything I can to try to find common ground and common-sense solutions to problems. I don’t have a hyper-partisan side.
“It’s my nature, it’s problem solving,” he said. “And solutions are what I’ve done my whole life.”