By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Rhode Island gas and electric ratepayers should pay about $10 less in their National Grid bills in the coming months, under an agreement with the Public Utilities Commission, according to Lt. Gov. Dan McKee, who says his office helped to negotiate the deal in which the utility will return nearly $8 million in windfall profits realized under President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
National Grid’s corporate tax rate fell from 35 percent to 21 percent under the tax act.
“The money is certainly far more important going into our ratepayers’ pockets than having a tax windfall going into the shareholders’ pockets of the National Grid,” said McKee, a Democrat.
“Utility companies throughout the country have already stepped forward and reimbursed their ratepayers,” McKee said in a Wednesday morning news conference in his State House office. “Rhode Island is lagging on that but finally we got it done.”
McKee also announced that his office is working to encourage the Rhode Island House to take up a bill that the Senate is considering, that would hold National Grid and other utilities responsible and liable for fines, for failing to put forward emergency response plans, pointing to the gas emergency that left thousands of Newport gas customers without service for days earlier this year.
McKee also said he is taking up the cause of Rhode Island manufacturers who say they are locked in to rate agreements with National Grid, making it difficult to negotiate with alternative gas suppliers.
