House committee narrows H.125 reporting bill to map fuel access, EV chargers and fuel-seller trends

The House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on Feb. 21 debated H.125, a bill that would require the Department of Public Service, in consultation with relevant state agencies, to publish an annual "energy transition economic impact" report on Jan. 15 of each year.

Committee members and staff agreed the first iteration should rely on datasets already collected by state agencies — then expand in a later phase. Legislative counsel said the bill creates a new statutory section in Title 30 and would direct the Department of Public Service to produce the report, while a sponsor and witnesses pressed the committee to be specific about datasets and to ask agencies for a retrospective baseline.

"What you're looking at in this bill ... is a change to the statute," said Helen Jankowski, Office of Legislative Counsel, describing where the new report language would sit in Title 30. Jankowski advised the committee about including limited purpose or intent language as session law rather than durable statutory findings.

Witnesses described how the datasets…