The Real Problem With CL&P

MANIFESTO

It stands to reason that if a private corporation is charged with providing what should be a public service, services will perforce suffer. And so it is with CL&P (and its owner, Northeast Utilities).

I've probably been as big an apologist for CL&P as anyone. I just didn't see how the company could have been any more efficient in its response to Hurricane Irene two months ago. And, indeed, I have CL&P to thank that I'm one of a minority of its customers with power on this Halloween night.

However, when people smarter than I note that CL&P is grievously understaffed and so simply cannot react to any extraordinary circumstances, I have to wonder about how the state of Connecticut (and the rest of the country) has allowed a setup like this to occur.

It goes without saying that any public company's first obligation is to its shareholders. As a result, it must make as much profit as it can, and if this means retaining a skeleton staff, so be it.

For the second time in two months, the Constitution State is seeing how that capitalist notion can play out.