Solar panels on a home in Cheshire Earthlight Technologies

The Energy and Technology Committee Thursday voted to send major energy legislation proposed by Gov.Dannel P. Malloy to the full legislature for consideration, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the bill as it exists now.

The approval came after assurances from committee leadership that the bill – Senate Bill 9, which implements updates to the state’s Comprehensive Energy Strategy – would be considered a work in progress and would need more revision before it’s debated on the floor. It already has already had extensive revision.

Speakers from both parties said they were willing to move the legislation along, but warned they also would vote against it on the floor if changes were not made. “This bill isn’t where I want it to be, but we really don’t have a choice,” said Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, who noted he, like others, was very frustrated with the original bill.

“I don’t feel the bill is ready for prime time,” said Rep. Chris Perone, D-Norwalk. “But I’ll be moving it along.”

Only a handful of committee members voted against the bill.

The chief concern has been changes the legislation makes to the state’s solar incentive programs. Read about those issues here.

Jan Ellen is CT Mirror's regular freelance Environment and Energy Reporter. As a freelance reporter, her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Yale Climate Connections, and elsewhere. She is a former editor at The Hartford Courant, where she handled national politics including coverage of the controversial 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. She was an editor at the Gazette in Colorado Springs and spent more than 20 years as a TV and radio producer at CBS News and CNN in New York and in the Boston broadcast market. In 2013 she was the recipient of a Knight Journalism Fellowship at MIT on energy and climate. She graduated from the University of Michigan and attended Boston University’s graduate film program.

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