The CT Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/tag/ct-department-of-energy-and-environmental-protection/)
With the Energy and Technology Committee’s approval deadline for bills this session on Thursday, committee leaders, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the governor’s office and environmental advocates are racing the clock on one of the most consequential energy bills in years. Solar policy could stop them — again. Continue Reading →
The final version of Connecticut’s new energy strategy and the bills that would implement it are before the legislature. So is a controversy that has dogged the plan since it was first released – solar policy. Continue Reading →
Slid into last year’s budget during final negotiations was a provision that limits the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to 90 days to either approve or deny a laundry list of nearly four-dozen permits. If DEEP doesn’t take action, the permit automatically goes into effect. DEEP calls the sneak change “awful public policy,” and the fight is on. Continue Reading →
State energy officials recommended Thursday that the Millstone nuclear power station be allowed to offer further evidence of financial distress as part of a new procurement process that could enhance the profitability of Connecticut’s biggest source of zero-carbon electricity. Continue Reading →
Regardless of what the Connecticut legislature decides on Millstone, it won’t change some basic realities: One day the nuclear plant will close, and Connecticut doesn’t have a plan for that. The question of how to replace Millstone elicits all kinds of ideas. But parameters matter: Are we talking short-term, long-term, cleanly, at what cost to ratepayers? Continue Reading →
Two well-intentioned environmental polices – one encouraging more renewable power and the other the preservation of farms and forestland – are colliding. They are pitting farmer against farmer and environmental interest groups against one another, putting state departments at odds, and raising the always explosive issue of private property rights versus state policy. Continue Reading →
For decades, Connecticut residents have taken water for granted. But approval of a water bottling plant in Bloomfield, the coming of the state’s worst drought since the 1960s, and several other water controversies in recent years have put the spotlight on both the state’s lack of an overall water plan and questions about the transparency and accountability of the Metropolitan District Commission, the Hartford region’s big water and sewer agency. Continue Reading →
Seaside in Waterford is one of the last great buildings designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert, famous for the Woolworth Building, the U.S. Supreme Court and New Haven’s Union Station. Built by the sea as a tuberculosis sanitarium and later used as a facility for the intellectually disabled, the grand building is a deteriorating derelict after years of state indecision. Now the state is down to its last chance to save it. Continue Reading →