CONNECTICUT POWER OUTAGE: Blame the regulators. “But the politicians keep hyperventilating for publicity, overlooking that every aspect of the outage — from tree trimming to the number of repair crews to the general reliability of the power grid to the lavish salaries of power company executives — has always been subject to the jurisdiction of the state regulatory commission, recently renamed the Public Utility Regulatory Authority. That is, CL&P and all other utilities can hardly do anything without state government’s review and approval. Regulation may have been inadequate, but Connecticut’s elected officials always have had primary responsibility here. If CL&P hasn’t done a good job, then state government hasn’t supervised the company well either.”