Former Mayor Bill Collins wants the state to buy the so-called sooty-six and start generating power. Today’s Norwalk Hour reports:

“I sort of drafted (a bill) that would empower the state of Connecticut to acquire all the ‘Sooty Six’ plants (including) Norwalk’s Manresa,” Collins said. “There’s six of these plants like Manresa in the state. What this bill is saying is the state should buy them all and condemn them if necessary.”

“They used to be a significant portion of generation,” Collins said. “If they are rebuilt — at a cost of several billion dollars — then that would have a dramatic effect on the amount of electricity available in our state.”

So much for reducing consumption. The population of Connecticut has only grown a shade over 4000 this past year, according the an editorial in the same issue of the Hour, so it’s not as if the demand is growing because of economic growth. We’ve already noted the loss of manufacturing companies amongst a large outflux already. But the arguments being delivered for and against the idea of state owned energy generation falls into another category, again from the Hour:

Collins’ idea for the state resembles what he has pushed for in Norwalk. In August, Collins and William M. Krummel, chairman of the Common Council’s Public Works Committee, urged formation of a subcommittee to explore whether Norwalk should create a public power authority and try to buy Manresa Power Plant to deliver electricity to residents. The committee has authorized the public works director to issue a request for proposals, seeking firms to perform a feasibility study of the idea.

And while local politicians, including Mayor Richard A. Moccia, have said the idea at least deserves consideration, pursuing it at a state level may prove difficult at best.

“It’s one thing when you have a taxing district running an electric company,” said state House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-142, referring to South Norwalk Electric Works and the 3rd Taxing District Electric Department. “What (this) sounds like is to expand our bureaucracy and state government by going into the power business. I’m not sure if that’s a wise idea. What you’re talking about is socialism and I’m not in favor of that.”

Socialism? Have we entered a time warp here? I suppose Cafero thinks our state roads is socialism in action. Or maybe he’s not in favor of the Green Bay Packers, owned by the people of Green Bay. The reflexive argument of capitalism versus the other “isms” is so retro, that I should be typing this on a TRS-80. And its a shame that this is the level of the discussion that will undoubtedly accompany this idea to Hartford.

The truth about markets and financing has created innovative ways that large scale projects can be owned. Private ownership almost doesn’t exists anymore when you consider that corporations act to the benefit of the collective good of the shareholders. Shareholders who can also be public consumers. Ownership has become a very fluid issue.

The real stakes here are whether part time legislators are the right stewards to make economic business decisions that benefit the people of Connecticut. The history of deregulating the electricity market in 1998 suggests that they are not. Something else is needed to balance the need for regulation and profit gathering.
Connecticut has not been smart about infrastructure investment, and its unlikely that adding an electric plant or two will change that. If Collins and Cafero are serious about the cost of energy, they would do better on focusing on reducing consumption.