When Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, first nominated Marissa Gillett to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority in 2019, he praised the ​“outsider’s perspective” she would bring to the state’s energy challenges. This September, just months after a bruising reconfirmation process, she stepped down, citing a tangle of acrimonious disputes with investor-owned utilities and lawmakers who bristled at her novel approach to regulation and accused her of inappropriate, even unlawful, bias.

Public utility commissions are essential but largely invisible forces regulating and shaping electricity, gas, and water services at the state level. Traditionally, these boards have been thought of as working in tandem with utilities, rarely challenging their proposals and claims. Recently, though, the tides have shifted, as more states and advocacy groups look at ways for commissioners to advance state energy policy.

The need for decisive action from utility commissions is becoming more acute as electricity prices climb almost everywhere in the country and many states push to meet decarbonization goals. The regulatory status quo just doesn’t lend itself to the systemic changes needed to fight these battles.

Gillett has been hailed by some as an exemplar of the assertive regulator, bringing a decidedly proactive sensibility to her work on the Connecticut commission, commonly called PURA. Following her resignation from the board, Gillett sat down for a conversation with Canary Media about what that involved regulation should look like as states face down a crucial moment for consumers and climate alike.

“Regulators need to roll up their sleeves and figure out how to provide continuous, sustained rigorous oversight,” she said.

Moving beyond ​‘balls and strikes’

The traditional model for investor-owned utilities guarantees them a set rate of return on every dollar spent building new distribution lines, upgrading substations, and other such projects. This dynamic has led to criticism that utilities are prone to overspending on infrastructure that might not be in the interest of customers or the environment, for the simple reason that it will bolster their earnings and please their investors.

A key job of leaders like Gillett is to weigh these utility requests against the need for adequate, reliable infrastructure, and the needs of consumers and the state’s energy policy goals. But for too long, critics say, commissioners have functioned more as umpires calling balls and the occasional strike, approving most utility requests.

Before coming to Connecticut, Gillett worked for seven years at the Maryland Public Service Commission, contributing to the development of initiatives including the state’s electric vehicle programs and its offshore wind plan. After a brief stint with the Energy Storage Association, a trade group, she threw her hat in the ring for the Connecticut commissioner position.

Gillett came into the job ready to be the ​“change agent” the governor said he wanted. Her aim was to reform an entrenched system that had led to some of the country’s highest electricity rates and mixed progress on climate goals — and to move away from the ​“balls and strikes” mentality that she found unrealistic and limiting.

“I acknowledge you have to make decisions based on the evidence and record in front of you,” she said.

But she was not willing to accept that the only evidence available was what was contained in utility filings and the responses to them. She offered this analogy: If one party came before PURA saying the sky was green, and another argued it was purple, the board should not be forced to choose between those two options.

To dig deeper into the issues before the commission, she assembled a staff of 80 ​“who are the best in the business and are very passionate about the work,” a group she hopes stays in place despite her departure.

“It is important who sits in the commissioners’ seats, but it’s also important who staffs them,” she said.

Right from the beginning, she and her staff led PURA in several controversial decisions that left utilities and Republican lawmakers claiming she was creating a hostile and uncertain environment for the state’s two major investor-owned utilities — Eversource and United Illuminating — and their shareholders.

After the utilities struggled to restore power following Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020, PURA ordered Eversource to return $28.4 million to customers in the form of bill credits. In 2023, the commission reduced United Illuminating’s requested $123 million rate increase by $100 million. The utility challenged this move in court, but PURA’s decision was upheld.

Gillett argues she always just applied rules that were on the books but rarely enforced. She points to her track record in court cases: Five times utility challenges have made it to the Connecticut Supreme Court, and five times the court supported PURA’s rulings, she said.

“For years we heard in public that I was acting illegally, making decisions that were arbitrary and capricious,” she said. ​“I was now holding them to standards they had not been held to. I viewed myself as somebody tasked with implementing state policy.”

While the financial penalties and rate reductions Gillett’s PURA imposed garnered headlines, she also made changes that were less widely noticed, with the goal of prepping the grid to handle more renewable energy. Within Gillett’s first year, the board launched the Equitable Modern Grid initiative, a series of investigations into 11 topics, including advanced metering, energy storage, and affordability. The process yielded ongoing action, including a battery incentive for homeowners and businesses and a program to fund pilots trying out innovative grid technologies.

“Considering how slowly regulatory processes usually work, I think designing and launching those programs in that amount of time was very impactful,” Gillett said.

It’s difficult to assess the effect of Gillett’s philosophy on Connecticut’s energy and climate landscape quite yet: Changes to the utility industry are notoriously slow-moving, and the pandemic added an extra level of disruption to her tenure.

Electricity prices remain high there, as they are throughout the entire Northeast, but Gillett leaves behind programs intended to reduce the energy burden on low-income households. During her tenure, the state implemented its first discount electricity rate for such families and launched an outreach program to help disadvantaged households access assistance offerings.

Gillett does not yet have her next move mapped out, but she does have a degree of optimism that utility regulation is evolving toward the sort of goal-driven, engaged model she brought to her time in Connecticut.

More states are already taking seriously the need to seek out ​“competent, qualified” regulators with a background relevant to the work, she said. She pointed to a Brown University study that found, nationwide, the share of commissioners with previous work on environmental issues grew to 29% in 2020 from 12% in 2000. States like Maine and Colorado have taken steps to direct their utility regulators to consider emissions, equity, and environmental justice when making decisions.

“As electricity affordability becomes more front-and-center, and folks are looking to who is supposed to be watching out for them, there will be a moment when regulators embrace that philosophy more,” she said.