FEMA’s new flood insurance program kicks in Friday, but how the new system actually works is murky.
Jan Ellen Spiegel
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.
Posted inTransportation
Report: CT not meeting emissions goals; Transportation to blame
Connecticut is not on track to meet its greenhouse gas emission goals — and transportation emissions are the main culprit.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Connecticut farmers are finding there’s no easy way to deal with climate extremes
Farmers around the state are coping with extreme weather, multiple outcomes of climate change, and the unpredictability of the future.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Government
For CT’s environmental agency, Zoom was ‘the real hero’ of the pandemic
Despite some legislative setbacks, more work on environmental issues than initially anticipated got done over Zoom
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Adapting to an uncertain climate future, Connecticut auditions new forests
Climate change is already impacting the state’s trees. Here’s what environmentalists are doing to mitigate the damage.
Posted inMoney
Special session to focus on marijuana legalization, budget implementer
Legislative leaders declined to expand the special session beyond marijuana legalization and a budget implementation bill.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Transportation
It looks like CT’s Transportation Climate Initiative bill is dead. Now what?
The legislature’s failure to pass TCI could test the state’s leadership role in battling climate change.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Transportation
Is it a plan to fight climate change, or a gas tax? The TCI is facing fierce pushback
Connecticut is one of 14 jurisdictions signed on to the Transportation and Climate Initiative.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A battle to get more clean energy into New England’s electric grid is underway. Here’s what you need to know.
The DEEP commissioner is leading an effort to increase renewable power, lower costs and keep everyone civil. It’s not simple.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT has big plans for tackling climate change. Now it has to make them happen.
Gov. Ned Lamont wants to expand the role of the Connecticut Green Bank to include funding for climate change projects.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A shocker in the plan to finally update residential solar rates: No complaints
Connecticut is on the verge of changing one of the key financial underpinnings for residential solar electric systems.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Lamont: ‘I don’t want to build Killingly’ Energy Center
The governor hinted at slowing permitting and being able to “play some games there.”
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Food could hold the key to fixing the state’s waste disposal problems
Getting food waste out of the trash may provide the key to fixing the dated waste systems in the state.
Posted inNews
Best of 2020: CT keeps losing power when storms strike. But that doesn’t have to happen.
Assigning blame for power outages misses the point. Instead, we should be figuring out how to keep the lights on.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Transportation
CT signs on to regional plan to cut transportation emissions
Connecticut has signed on to a ground-breaking plan that will help dramatically lower greenhouse gas and other emissions from transportation.