From the transcript of the Connecticut House of Representatives - June 5, 2007:

"REP. NARDELLO: (89^th)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I started to say, one of the problems when we went to a deregulated environment is that we no longer had independent power plants with the obligation to serve.

Which means that they could sell their electricity anywhere, outside of Connecticut, within Connecticut, the hedge funds or whomever they so choose.

And that I think has really put the State of Connecticut's citizens at a disadvantage, because these power plants, while located in the state, do not have to sell to us.

Now what I did do in this amendment that's very different than the amendment we did last year is in recognition of the fact that part of it is getting these generators who are low cost generators to sell to the State of Connecticut and into our power supply, into our standard service.

As I said that the generators are exempted from this tax if they agree to sell at least 50% of their power to the State of Connecticut, which I think is a very important concession.

Because the issue here is getting the lowest cost power to the residents of the State of Connecticut, and of course they hold the lowest cost power. Now there have been changes in the federal market rules that continue and allow these excess profits.

So the only recourse we have is to tax the profits so that we can return them both to our seniors, to our businesses, to our residential consumers, to our industrial consumers, everybody gets to share in this because it's a direct rebate on the bill.

The 2007 projection of what this tax will yield is $ 415 million. Regulated companies make a 10% rate of return.

And what we're doing here is we're saying that anything above a 20% rate or return, which is double what the regulated companies make, they get to keep 50%, and we get 50% that goes back to the ratepayers.

Right now, the profit estimates for the Millstone One plant are 44%, the Millstone two plant 53%, and the Bridgeport Harbor plant are 100%.

And if you look at the fiscal note that a company's distilled, the revenue estimates expected from this are $ 350 million per year. And you have to keep in mind that for each $ 40 million that we have in revenues or expenditures, it's a 1% increase or a decrease in rate.

So therefore if we bring in revenues of $ 400 million as this is projected, that would be a 10% rate reduction to the consumers of the State of Connecticut, again, across the board, which I would be very happy about and certainly hope we can enact."