A key sticking point has emerged in state lawmakers’ desperate bid to reach a deal that will offer some relief for Connecticut residents on their electric bills, legislative leaders said on Friday.

As of early Friday evening, negotiators were still at work putting the finishing touches on Senate Bill 4, a sprawling piece of legislation that lawmakers hope will offer between $250 million and $500 million in direct savings to ratepayers by borrowing money to pay off portions of the public benefits charge on people’s bills.

But while members of both parties are in broad agreement on the need for legislation to lower prices, a debate over one provision of the bill, which addresses the powers of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, has threatened to upend the precarious negotiations.

Republicans are demanding that Democratic leaders and the governor’s office, who are hammering out the bill’s language, alter a section of the bill they argue would concentrate more power with PURA’s leader, Marissa Gillett. As the session hurtles toward its constitutional deadline next Wednesday, their power to filibuster and ultimately block legislation only grows.

“I’d like to see something that is actually going to reduce energy costs,” House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, told reporters Friday. “I’m hopeful we’re going to get there but I’m not going to back down.”

The section in question first appeared in a draft of the bill that was circulated around the state Capitol last week. It would allow Gillett or her successor to assign a hearing officer to rule on “procedural, evidentiary and intermediate matters” in cases that appear before utility regulators.

Critics quickly noted that the language appears to touch on an issue that’s the subject of a lawsuit filed in January by the state’s two utility companies, Eversource and Avangrid. The lawsuit alleged Gillett has made herself, in essence, a hearing officer, issuing unilateral decisions in hundreds of matters dating back to 2020. In court filings, attorneys for the agency have rebutted those claims and argued Gillett has revised longstanding practices to provide for more input from her fellow commissioners.

The original text in the draft bill would have made the hearing officer language effective retroactive to Jan. 1, 2025 — before the lawsuit was filed — prompting Candelora to accuse Gillett of interfering in the bill-drafting process to give herself cover from the litigation.

Candelora said the objectionable language was initially was dropped from newer versions of the bill after concerns were raised last week, only to reemerge in recent days.

A spokeswoman for PURA said Gillett was presiding over a rate case on Friday and was not immediately available for comment.

One of the key drafters of the legislation, state Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, said the section of the bill in question originated from an effort by House members to address the ongoing dispute over administrative procedures between PURA and the utilities. Since then, the co-chair of the Energy and Technology Committee said it’s become a headache he’d rather not deal with.

“My position on this from the very beginning was even talking about this issue — which was a House ask to clarify procedure — even talking about it while there’s an ongoing lawsuit, is a bad idea,” Needleman said.

Still, Needleman said the section remained a point of contention Friday and was one of the last remaining issues that needed to be resolved before lawmakers could read and vote on the bill. With the Senate planning to break for the weekend, the soonest a vote could happen is Monday.

“I’m out of time,” Needleman said. “I don’t have a lot of negotiating space, I can’t drag this out.”

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, told reporters earlier Friday that the bill would need to have bipartisan support in order to make it through the House next week due to the dwindling amount of time left in the session and his desire to maintain what is a strong working relationship with Candelora, the Republican leader.

When asked about the origins of the language dealing with PURA, Ritter confirmed Needleman’s account that the section originated in the House with both Republican and Democratic support. However, he said it evolved beyond their initial idea after going through a comment process that involved members of Gov. Ned Lamont’s office, PURA and the Office of Consumer Counsel, among others.

Ritter said he also agreed with Needleman that the retroactive date in the language was made in error, and that it would be corrected in the final version of the bill.

“It was not a conspiracy,” Ritter said. “The original concept comes from the House, and we’re going to try to get it right, because it’s a big part of the bill.”

Candelora, meanwhile, said he would like to see the bill include language that would require any matter before PURA to be assigned to a panel of commissioners, who could then vote to appoint their own “presiding officer,” rather than leaving that decision up to the chair. He also reiterated his desire to have Lamont fill a pair of vacancies that have existed since the lawmakers expanded the number of PURA commissioners from three to five in 2019.

“There’s still a fundamental struggle with how much authority to give the chairman of PURA versus having the commission act as a panel,” Candelora said.

Ritter said he shared Candelora’s concerns and remained hopeful that the two chambers could work out a compromise. Needleman, meanwhile, said he’s asked the Attorney General’s office to weigh in on the latest draft of the bill to ensure that any language dealing with PURA’s procedures does not interfere with ongoing litigation.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General William Tong said Friday afternoon the office was still waiting to see the latest language in the bill.

If either Tong’s office or members of the House object to that language, Needleman said he’s prepared to strip the section out of the bill altogether in hopes of getting to a final agreement.

“Here’s the bottom line: This bill is about saving money. I’m trying to get to the maximum amount of savings for ratepayers,” Needleman said. “All the other stuff is superfluous.”