stephen humes we represent the plaintiffs and the appellant's in this case this appeal raises two principal issues st whether the district court erred when it concluded that the act did not violate the hold that the district court's decision is erroneous as a matter of law and should be reversed turning st to the contract last claim the district court's decision on that point is flawed for two principle reasons and the st reason is that the district court concluded that the state had the right to sweep money from the energy funds principally because the contract between the plaintiffs and the utilities or the e c s did not expressly prohibit the state from sweeping the funds or transferring the money outside of the funds to the general fund our position is there's no principle of contract law that supports the district court's decision i think maybe you're mis characterizing the district court's decision i mean it seems to me that what the court found is that there's nothing in the contract that requires or compels the state to spend the money in any particular way and fact that's not that's not a term in the contract that even could be yes i agree that that is an important part of the court's reasoning as well but prevent the transfer of money out of the energy funds and so our position is that these funds individual speaking simplest simplistically or thing about individual checking accounts that are sitting over there that you can't spend down heavily regulated by the state is then to the rate payers us series saying to the utilities you charge rate payers make them pay an additional mil or whatever it is and it's right to put that money aside in a separate account and you're going to use that for green and renewable energy right so there are there is a plan that is adopted and has to be approved at least as far as the clean energy fund by the commissioner of the department of environmental protection but once that plan is approved the utilities have great control over how the funds are actually spent for instance they select all the contractors that are used are hired to  run these home energy audits that are available to the rate payers if they request it they write the checks they conduct the official see that they conduct the analysis of whether these are done efficiently and they don't have to go back to the state every time they cut a check they don't have to go back to this to ask that question and that's an important point they they don't have to go back to the state to make all these decisions these there's the commissioner signs off and then it's the  responsibility of the utilities to make sure the plan is faithfully executed but they don't that has not been having to do with the contract between the utilities and the rate payers right that has to do with the arrangement between the state and the utilities in the initial legislation well it becomes relevant for the i believe it's part of the equal protection analysis if that's your question but the the the contract between the  right so we're relying on several of them are identified in the brief one of them is the monthly statement which i don't which so tells ratepayers on a monthly basis that the funds that you're charged every month are going to be used for the energy fund that is just amazingly recites what the state has told utilities they can do with the funds that they're required to collect and it's a representation to the rate payers that the that this money that's being collected is going to be uses for which the funds can be spent and the language was interpreted by the district court as merely descriptive and our contention is that the district court didn't was it was a conclus analysis didn't interpret that language with attention to principles of contract interpretation as articulated by the state of connecticut where a contract must be construed so as to give full meaning in effect to all of its provisions here the district court merely read those terms out of existence entirely and our contention is that's entirely inconsistent with contract interpretation under connecticut law it would also lead to an absurd result in that it would vitiate any kind of limits on how the funds could be spent it would be absurd to think that the e c s could take the funds and buy their executives jeep wrangler is for christmas factors that apply to what they can be spent on yes yes in the express in the tariff in there also set out in the enabling statute sixteen dash to forty five and then now what's important about those statutes is that they are incorporated by reference into the tariff and we cited to deming which is the connecticut supreme court opinion statutes existing at the time a contract was made become a part of it and must be read into it just as if an express provision to that effect were inserted there  so our contention is that the language that's set out in these in two hundred and forty five dollars and then is incorporated in the contract becomes a term of the contract between the plaintiffs and the e d c and the state can't infringe the that contract by taking the funds and removing them taking them to the general fund your your time is about to just about i'm going to add five minutes to each of your sides operating in connecticut that's correct and they are subject to the same withholding or additional taxation fees that go into a similar program but not the same one they're not this particular you know i know that when i use one they're set up the same way have the same sort of fun but it's a different one and they have not been had that fun switched over to pay into the state treasury that's my understanding is that a basis for your equal protection argument yes that's correct and it's not simply that the funds are being charged to the rate payers of the two investor runed e t c easing connecticut and not to the municipal funds but then we're comfortable with the the fees being assessed to the rate payers the problem becomes when the funds are removed from the energy funds and used for the purposes for which they are designated in transferred to the general funds that in our view becomes a tax and there's attack that constitutes a tax on the rate payers of the e c s that is not assessed as to the consumers of the municipal funds do i understand that that's what we're here discussing has happened in prior years as it has to a much smaller extent you know under the those funds repaid once the once the state got back on its feet if it did or if you don't know you can my understanding is that they were in the earlier funds not not these sweeps which were for under forty five million over two years which earlier funds were paid back that's my understanding and so putting aside these are going to be paid well that's what we're trying to do here yearly to borrowing well i know you're going to get them back but there's nothing that tells us whether there is any obligation on the part of the state of connecticut to pay them back once the thing i did want to mention the filed rate doctrine which argument is that it applies in this case and we believe that the trial court the district court i should say gave it short shrift in its memorandum of decision it's a doctrine that applied as a matter of common law and you till it gets to spend its money that it takes our position is that we don't get to tell the utility how to spend its money but they do have a say they do have a right as to how the money in these funds are spent the monies are held into the tariff the contract between the plaintiffs in the e c s become to the terms become a part of that contract and even the district court's decision stated that the that portion of the enabling statute that articulated intended purposes of the energy funds did set limits on how those funds could be used once those terms are incorporated into the contract as we contend that they have been they become part of the bargain and just like to point out before my time expires the state actually made an argument trying to incorporate the public back seventeen got more workout today than just around when the mud your arms may please the court system attorney general philip miller and i'm representing all the state defendants in the section of the contracts because i think it actually is one question that's disp e of this country cause issues and that simply do connecticut general statutes sixteen to forty five am and then create a contractual obligation on behalf of the state that they must use that money in these funds if they've created only for energy efficiency purposes and not use it for anything else and the players conceded in their reply brief that on their own do not create any contractual right and let's say that they're saying the contract between the right player and the utility which consists of monthly bills that state what the what's coming taken out and what that is being sent for the purposes of this arrangement and the tariffs between them sort of constitute a contrary and problem with the argument is that you know there is some contractor obviously the repairs are paying a bill and the energy companies are providing electricity so there is some contract there but the problem is what they're trying to do is they're trying to bind the state to a private contract so the term they want to bind the state to if it existed i don't think it does anywhere in the language is that the state may only use the money for the energy efficiency purposes and can't use it anywhere out or the only way the state can be bound to their term is if the state has agreed to be so out and since the legislature created the scheme and they created the funds and they directed how the funds would be spent it would be spent and what they would be spent on your honor the only way they could be bound is if that and it's me i'm sure i'm going to it just seems very odd that the state tells folks and i come from vermont and if you know anything about vermont utility reg what everybody's talking about out there this is the headset i have on because i have to listen to it it seems very odd that the state says to the utility as it can ers certainly permitted to you have to do these various programs and trap these funds hold them and use them on green energy and renewable energy and the utilities go do that and they trap them and hold them and expect to expend them on green energy and utility sorry renewable energy because we're all trying to be good world citizens and deal with global warming and that sort of and the state comes in and says well you know that knows our g funds that have been set up and that you're holding well we're not going to take them and do something else with them hour i understand i mean i understand what you're where you're coming from but this is assuage my concerns that so this is the legislative progress of all due respect to this court and to the legislature can when they created this whole system they could have done it in one of two ways they could have tried to create a contractual right to basically say we can we can only do this we're making a contractual promise with you it is repairs will never move us they didn't do that here so they just created statute to created a policy and they you know connecticut as i you understood we had some bad budget times a few years ago so the legislature did what they had to do they got together in a room and they had to make compromises and they decided you know they didn't take all the money away they took about a rd of it over those two years and they said listen we've decided to let such started that there's a better use and more important at this time for that money and i would know that's that's fine and i don't mean to cut you off but i just have a particular point could could you just make it clearer for me is this one part of money that's sitting out there and under one dollar more does each of the utilities have its own part of the state comes in and takes it is so my understanding is each utility there is you know you i and every source they each have their own fund and then there's always that proportionately to when the legislature when the treasurer get minutes that right is a check each of the row i think they contribute because the u i has many less customers than ever so slightly was all proportion to their that's what amount of money in the fine and there's also so there is just the c l and i'm fund there's also the funds that go to the green bank so that's a sort of a different that's acquires a public entity so there's a and there's a different source that goes to the green fund is there is getting rid of the funds actually now there's distil going to pay the charge but now those charges are going to go into i think the utilities own funds and the utah is will still have to only spend that money on whatever the plan tells them to but i think they want to try to make it i think your point judge so if this if these two statutes don't create a contractual right then and last the legislature would have told the e c s or pura or or the or department armor protection we give you the authority to so bind us and there's nothing in the record to sex just they did then there's just no contractual term the can bind the state i think that's where we get to and there are and again that's one additional court said listen we understand the language it is descriptive in nature but it does not bind the state because the state has never indicated contractually would be so bound and so what you're saying is that they're effectively saying if they had a contract with their clients with their rate payers to say and ten percent of the taxes we pay will go towards renewable energy they don't got to set up this program the money is yours you mean the money's dc's the money is the utilities money that it has to use in a certain way and it's not the state's money at all so it's not the e c s money because  with a plan the plan is approved by the commission of the department vironment of protection and that's how the money can be spent the e c s cannot spend one dime of that money without without permission and what often happens is the disease will want to spend it and say i think they want to spend on solar this year but solar isn't doing as well as many as many people are solar so they'll get permission can we spend on energy efficiency improvements or something like that so there's consciously trying to move the money around to make sure they spend it all but they can't do anything without the state authority to spend that so you and is this transfers what we have again we have transfer of money from e c for e c accounts that there has to set up required by the state and it has transferred the general fund so you don't just push a couple buttons on some computers and we move money from one and there's no we there's no classification no equal protection violation and i guess i go back to what was a tax and if you look at any definition of a tax it is basically the imposition telling the repairer you must take some of your own money and you will give it to the state and that's generally what probably for good reason because one of if that was a violation one of the ways we could fix it is discover the program so obviously they would want that so they're not challenging the actual payment of money from the rate payers to the state through the disease but the challenge now is is this later transfer way the state claims now the plaintiffs did make a couple quick arguments since i don't recall i'll mention now i think what they they claim they have a legitimate claim of entitlement one because well they have an ex they should be able to get used this program management to point out that there's no guarantee that any rate parent can use the program they have the ability to apply for it but you know if everyone often want to do so and when you do certainly wouldn't be enough money in the fun to do all that so we sort of count on the fact that not every ratepayer is going to use this program every year  certainly they have an interest in the front of that set and then secondly they talked about how there's this the kid the cam is fully reconciled with the end of the year and if they don't spend if there's a five percent difference that money has to go back t were all that saying is your honor at the end of the year what their goal is is to try to spend every penny that goes in and there's nothing in the record and i'm not aware of any time that we've actually given this money any money back to the repairs that we do a pretty good job of as you can imagine right the government is a pretty good job of moving all that money around to make sure it's all spent but what happened in this case is when the plan was adjusted to say ok we understand there's an sweep we're going to we're going to move money out of the fund so if there was anything left after that money is already been transferred i guess that five percent could kick again but that money's already gone through so have no claim of entitlement to that money that went into the into the general fund so it's gone that five percent now if it ever has occurred would only apply it's some point if there's any money left from what we're training to be spent but as i've said there's nothing to suggest that there's ever been that spent on that one thing else i want to say and i'm i'm just not sure about the sense you asked the question of has the money been returned in the past when it was my understanding that he did not b but i'm happy that i can go back to deep and i just i was curious i mean it was one of the things i thought about as i was wrestling with like i know with the securitization stand to what happened was relevant sweep of the money pit was over or allowed to i think approve sorry so just briefly on the contract clause claim the state's position that the statute sixteen dollars to forty five dollars and don't create a contractual obligation that the incorporated into the tariffs and thereby create become part of that contract in the state can't infringe those reasonable expectations that the plaintiffs or rate payers have that the funds that they pay every month in response to their statements that tell them where the funds are going to go they have a reasonable expectation believe the fund to be used for the purposes for which they're collected the contract clause is designed to protect just that kind of interference spent will be returned to the ratepayers now the question of whether or not they're actually returned because the monies were spent or not our position is that's not relevant to the analysis of whether the plaintiffs have a property interest in the funds as a part of the contract the plaintiffs have an expectation that the funds they do the property interest and at least at a minimum that portion of the every year that portion of the funds that they pay for those legitimate purposes and in fact during the years of the sweep that the sweep would have affected really vitiated their right to receive any kind of refund because the funds were diminished by so much they were to diminish