Press conference tomorrow on legislation to address rising electric rates.

Phil Sherwood, a New Britain resident and an advocate with the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, sent out this media advisory today.

The Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG) and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Discuss Campaign to Provide Rate Relief to CT's Electric Consumers

States oldest and largest public interest group and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will hold a press conference to discuss legislation aimed at lowering electric rates including a 'call to action'
for the public to send copies of their electric bills to state legislators.

Hartford, CT. – As CT's failed energy policies continue to shower the electric generation companies and commodity traders on wall street with unprecedented profits while forcing consumers to pay record high electric rates, the 2007 legislative session is coming to a close in less than 60 days. Members of the legislature are now considering a bill, HB7098, that aims to lower costs for everyone.

The CCAG and AG Blumenthal will call for the legislature to not only enact long term solutions to the broken electric market but to also provide immediate relief by refunding hundreds of millions of dollars to ratepayers through a refund and to support concepts that allow the state to regain control over electric power generation. They will host a press conference on Monday, April 9, 2007 at 11:00 AM, in room 1B at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

WHO: The CT Citizen Action Group and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.WHAT: Press conference with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the CT Citizen Action Group to discuss actions the state can take to solve the problem of high electric rates.
WHEN-WHERE: Monday, April 9, 2007 at 11:00 AM, Room 1B of the Legislative Office Building (LOB).

I plan to participate in this press conference.

I have been pressing for years for legislation to roll back Connecticut's failed electric deregulation system and restore a more reasonable system, like we used to have. If action is not taken soon on this legislation, things could get even worse then they already are. On the other hand, if the legislature approves the idea of a refund to consumers, rates could go down immediately.

I think that it is important that we get this done and done now.

Health Care forum at CCSU tomorrow.

The Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Social Workers will be hosting a forum on universal health care tomorrow at CCSU. Here is the press advisory from Sen. DeFronzo's office on this event.

NEW BRITAIN DELEGATION TO PARTICIPATE IN UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FORUM

Who: National Association of Social Workers - Connecticut
Senator Donald J. DeFronzo (D-New Britain)
Representative John Geragosian (D-New Britain)
Representative Tim O’Brien (D-New Britain)
Representative Peter Tercyak (D-New Britain)
Representative Betty Boukus (D-New Britain)

What: Will participate in a forum on universal health care

Where: Central Connecticut State University
Alumni Hall, 1615 Stanley Street, New Britain

When: TOMORROW, April 5, 2007, beginning at 4:00 p.m.

All members of the media and the public are invited to attend.

There are some great opportunities this year to win legislation to ensure that everyone is able to have affordable health care coverage. Good universal health legislation would lower health insurance costs for most people and businesses and extend good health care coverage to the 400,000 people in Connecticut who lack health care coverage and the thousands more who have costly and inadequate coverage.

I want to be there and hope that I am. If might not be in attendance, though, because of the hearing on the Judiciary Committee on the nomination of Chase Rogers to be the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. This is a very important hearing, especially given the problem exposed regarding the nomination of Peter Zarella as Chief Justice and the apparent effort to rush his nomination through the legislature without proper scrutiny by the public and the legislature.

But I encourage everyone to attend the forum at CCSU tomorrow.

A bill to make information from "black box" recorders in cars more private.

Most people know about the "black boxes" that are installed on airplanes. They are designed to provide key information to safety investigators of what was happening on an airplane leading up to an accident. (They are called "black boxes", because of their color after they have survived a fire.)

What many people do not know is that many newer cars have something similar installed. There is nothing like the "cockpit voice recorder" that records what pilots are saying. Airplanes actually have two "black boxes" - a voice recorder and an instrumentation data recorder. It is the second one that is similar to the new devices in many cars.

These devices are defined, in legislation approved in the Judiciary Committee today as...

"Event data recorder" means a device installed in a passenger motor vehicle, as defined in section 14-1 of the general statutes, that (A) records (i) the speed at which the motor vehicle is traveling, (ii) the direction in which the motor vehicle is traveling, (iii) steering performance data, (iv) brake performance data, including, but not limited to, whether the brakes were applied before an accident, (v) the usage of the operator's seat belt, (vi) engine speed, or (vii) throttle position, or (B) is capable of transmitting data concerning an accident in which the motor vehicle is involved to a central communications system; and (2) "lessee" means an individual who leases a passenger motor vehicle pursuant to a written lease for such individual's personal use for a period greater than three months.

This legislation, Senate Bill 974, (click here for the text of the bill) is designed to address a concern many people have had that the information recorded by these devices might be retrieved by someone might access this data - like an insurance company after an accident - and that this would violate the privacy of the car owner.

The legislation specifically allows law enforcement to have access to this information through the usually warrant process. The legislation does not prevent that. What it does do is to make it clear that the car owner owns the information in these data recorders, and other private individuals and companies have to ask permission to use it.

Given this, it made sense to me that I should vote in support of it in the Judiciary Committee today.