In another twist in a contentious disagreement over missing documents, the Public Utility Regulatory Authority reversed itself Wednesday and acknowledged the existence of directives limiting the ability of commissioners to consult staff experts directly on regulatory questions.
For months, PURA had been adamant in its denial that such a directive had been issued and the regulatory authority said it had been unable, after exhaustive searches, to recover email from its electronic archives notifying commissioners of such a policy.
On Wednesday, however, the regulatory agency disclosed two emails concerning staff access, including a December 2023 email from PURA Chief Marissa Gillett’’s chief of staff to the two commissioners then serving.
“Moving forward …I would appreciate it if all requests to work with staff came through me,” the email from Theresa Govert said. “This way, I can coordinate with the appropriate Director/Supervisor. Through my one-on-one conversations with staff these past few weeks, it has been made clear that they appreciate clear chains of communication and decision-making. I look forward to working with all of you to accomplish this goal.”
Fights about missing documents have become an issue in the increasingly contentious disagreement over regulatory policy between the state’s utilities and Gillett, who has assumed a dominant role in setting regulatory policy over a period during which the authority has issued a succession of rate decisions adverse to the utility industry.
The utilities argue that a restriction requiring supposedly co-equal commissioners to obtain her approval before consulting staff experts on complex legal and regulatory questions supports their broader argument that Gillett has taken personal control of much of PURA’s regulatory apparatus by reducing the role of the other commissioners. The result, the utilities argue, has been unfair and legally suspect rate decisions.
PURA flatly rejects the assertion and its general counsel, among others, has questioned — until Wednesday — the existence of email delivering such a message, saying that exhaustive searches have turned up empty.
An authority spokesman said Wednesday that PURA produced the email records disclosed Wednesday in response to a records request by the Courant. It said they had not been produced earlier because they were not “responsive” to longstanding public records requests made by state utility companies under state Freedom of Information law.
Gillett’s stormy relationship with the utility industry has become political and she narrowly won a confirmation vote at the General Assembly last winter after being nominated for a second term by Gov. Ned Lamont.
Republican state Reps. Tracy Marra and Vincent Candelora talk to the media during the final days of the legislative session at the Connecticut State Capitol on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, a North Branford Republican and critic, said the belated emergence of the email is cause for concern. In response to questions from Candelora at the hearing, Gillett denied PURA had a policy restricting access to staff by fellow commissioners.
“Based on the documentation just made available from PURA, information that has been sought after for months, I continue to have concerns about the way Chairman Gillett has conducted herself,” Candelora said. “This not only pertains to rate cases that affect millions of state ratepayers, but her testimony under oath before the legislature during her confirmation hearing.”
Questions about the mystery email became particularly pointed after Gillett’s belated admission earlier this summer that an automatic delete program on her personal cellphone erased another record that has become a flashpoint in her disagreement with the utilities: A text message exchange that critics believe suggests she collaborated on a news opinion column or op ed that excoriated the utility industry.
Gillett acknowledged in June, months after the utilities went to court in an unsuccessful effort to access her text records, that the exchange had been deleted shortly after it occurred in December 2024. Although the texts were erased from Gillett’s phone, the Courant obtained the exchange from the personal cellphone of the legislator with whom she was corresponding.
In the exchange, the legislator discusses an “op ed,” Gillett mentions a draft she has completed and both worry about being “FOIA’d,” meaning being subjected to a public records request for the substance of their text exchange.
Gillett has said she was referring in the exchange to draft legislation not an anti-utility opinion piece the legislator co-authored and published shortly after the exchange. It was never her intention, she said, to circumvent public record laws.
Superior Court Judge Matthew Budzik, who is hearing the text message case, has scheduled a hearing next week to examine why PURA initially told him it had no record of the exchange and then, months later, acknowledged its deletion. PURA’s admission concerning the email on Wednesday comes as parties to the dispute prepare for the Budzik hearing.
Marissa Paslick Gillett, Chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority answers a question during the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee reappointment hearing on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
The text messages and now the missing email have become hot spots in what has turned into a years-long fight between Gillett and the utility industry over regulatory policy and rates.
Gillett supporters claim the utilities are using their substantial political influence to undermine her because she is reshaping and modernizing regulatory policy in ways that will hold the utilities to account and better protect customer interests. The supporters argue that customers suffered under years of lax regulation before her appointment by Lamont. She has Lamont’s support, but narrowly survived a renomination hearing at the Legislature last winter.
The utilities contend Gillett effectively has taken unilateral control of rate-making by improperly establishing herself as sole decider on important questions and pushing fellow commissioners out of the process by, among other things, restricting their access to staff experts. The utilities also argue that Gillett has made public statements that demonstrate bias against the industry.
Eversource, Avangrid and their gas and water subsidiaries have undergone a succession of credit downgrades following recent PURA recent rate decisions making it more difficult for them to borrow the hundred of millions of dollars they need to maintain their networks and pay for an expansion needed to meet an explosion in artificial intelligence.
In the case of the dispute over missing email, Eversource has insisted for nearly a year that internal PURA email exists requiring commissioners to obtain “direct or indirect” approval from Gillett before consulting staff was distributed. Three witnesses supported the Eversource position, the two other commissioners, John Betkoski and Michael Caron, and their staff assistant, Sheena McElrath.
At an August hearing on its email complaint to the state Freedom of Information Commission, McElrath testified under oath that she had no doubt the email existed because she opened it, read it and discussed it with Caron. Caron and Betkoski said, in interviews with the Courant, they too recalled the email.
“And are you certain that Commissioner Caron saw it?” Eversource lawyer Thomas Murphy asked McElrath at the FOI hearing.
“Yes,” she said.
“And you discussed it with Commissioner Caron?”
“Yes,” she replied.
When PURA general counsel Scott Muska followed McElrath as a witness, he took the opposite position.
“You’ve never seen any emails related to that topic, sir?,” Eversource lawyer James Healy asked Muska.
“No,” Muska replied. “And I can state emphatically that there’s never been a policy requiring Commissioner Betkoski or Commissioner Caron to seek permission from Chairman Gillett. So I would be surprised if there was an email to that extent.”
In a statement to the Courant in late August, a PURA spokeswoman said the authority had been unable to locate email requiring approval for staff meetings. She said all commissioners are free to consult staff, while recognizing a need for coordination for efficiency.
“This allegation is patently false as all commissioners continue to be free to communicate with staff and are encouraged to do so in coordination with the staff’s supervisor or director to ensure the complex work in each docket remains coordinated. Given that PURA actively manages a case load of between 80 and 100 dockets at a time, coordination and communication with and between staff and commissioners is essential to avoid confusion and facilitate efficient operations.”
In addition to the email from Govert, PURA said it also belatedly located a second email from a former staff director to Betkoski and Caron.
“Hopefully it is clear that all TRA staff have a great deal of respect for the role of Commissioners at PURA; however, it can be intimidating for staff to push back on these requests,” the second email said. “Thus, having someone else included on communications related to docket work and meeting and work requests helps ensure that staff workload and docket priorities are raised as necessary.”
At the time the emails were distributed, Betkoski and Caron met privately with Candelora and complained that, in their view, the directive on staff access reduced their authority as commissioners, according to an account of the meeting by Courant columnist Kevin Rennie.
Following the meeting, Candelora proposed legislation that would have guaranteed all PURA commissioners equal access to staff experts.
